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 ↓
Croutes of Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the bread
Remove the crusts from the bread and trim it into shape.
Melt the butter in a frying pan and fry the bread until brown, then remove and set aside.
Make the sauce and serve
Brown the flour in the remaining butter, then add the gravy or water, salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce.
Once the sauce has cooled slightly, stir in the meat and heat thoroughly.
Pile the mixture on the croûtes of bread and serve immediately.
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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Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,971 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,032 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Tinned beef
- Provides the main savoury filling and meaty flavour of the dish.
- Butter
- Fat that browns the bread and enriches the sauce with flavour.
- Flour
- Browned in butter to thicken the sauce and add a nutty flavour.
- Stale bread
- Dry, sturdy base that crisps when fried and holds the filling.
The step that matters
Stir in the meat only after the sauce has cooled slightly. If the sauce is too hot, the meat can toughen and the sauce may separate or thin out. Cooling slightly lets it thicken smoothly before the meat is folded in and gently heated through.
“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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