Name: Panada
Ingredients: ½ pint water; ⅓ cup wine; 2 teaspoons sugar; 2 tablespoons grated cold bread

Why it works: Wine and bread work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 956 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Panada

Ingredients

½ pint water
⅓ cup wine
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons grated cold bread

Directions

Put water in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
Add wine and sugar, stirring to dissolve.
Wet the grated bread with some of the water and stir it into the mixture.
Cook for a few minutes until combined.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Wine + breadtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together956 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).
Wine + sugartop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together9,581 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + breadtop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,638 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Grated bread: Thickens the liquid as it soaks up water and softens into a loose, porridge-like texture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to balance the wine and the bland bread.
Wine: Adds acidity and aroma, flavouring the drink.

“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.