Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Fried Bread-cruiibs
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the crumbs
Create very fine crumbs from the stale bread.
Shake the crumbs through a colander without touching them.
Fry the crumbs
Melt the butter in a frying pan over moderate heat.
Add the crumbs and stir constantly until they turn a clear gold color.
Remove the crumbs with a skimmer and spread them on a soft cloth over a sieve.
Dry the crumbs before the fire or in a gentle oven without butter for a more delicate preparation.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Stale bread
- Dried-out bread crumbs fry crisp and absorb butter without turning soggy.
- Butter
- Fat that coats the crumbs and fries them to a golden, toasty flavor.
The step that matters
Stirring the crumbs in the butter until clear gold. Crumbs are small and brown quickly once the butter is hot, so constant stirring keeps them an even golden color rather than scorched in patches. Removing them at the right moment stops residual heat from darkening them further.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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