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 ↓
Croustades, or Sweet Patties a LA Minute
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the croustades
Slice firm stale bread into ½ inch thick slices.
Use a small round or fluted cutter to cut out croustades.
Mark the centers with a smaller cutter, leaving a rim.
Scoop out the insides of each croustade.
Fry the scooped-out bread in good butter until pale brown.
Drain the browned bread and dry the croustades well.
Fill and serve
Fill each croustade with hot apple marmalade or warm preserve.
For Dresden patties, pare the crust from French rolls and slice off the ends.
Hollow the centers of the rolls.
Dip the hollowed rolls in milk or thin cream.
Place the dipped rolls on a drainer.
Pour a little more milk over them at intervals without breaking.
Brush the rolls with egg.
Sprinkle with crust from the rolls.
Fry the rolls and drain well.
Fill the rolls with minced meat, stewed mushrooms, or oysters.
Serve hot.
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).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,536 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Firm stale bread
- Its dry, firm crumb holds its shape when cut, scooped and fried.
- Good butter
- Frying in butter browns the bread surface and adds richness and aroma.
- Egg
- Brushed on the rolls, it helps them brown and set a glossy crust.
- Milk or thin cream
- Soaks into the rolls, adding moisture and softening the crumb before frying.
The step that matters
Drying the croustades after frying. Excess fat and moisture left on the fried bread make the shells greasy and soggy. Draining and drying them well keeps the crisp, browned case firm enough to hold the hot filling.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, mutton, milk, egg, mushroom):
- Coconutfits about as well
- Figfits about as well
- Applethe original
- Vanillafits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, mutton, milk, egg, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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