Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Fried Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Slice the stale bread.
Pour enough rich milk or cream over the bread to moisten it.
Beat the egg in a bowl.
Dip each slice of bread in the beaten egg.
Fry and season
Fry the bread in a pan until brown on both sides.
Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.
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.
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together26,984 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Stale bread
- Its dry, porous crumb soaks up milk and egg, giving the slices a soft interior.
- Rich milk or cream
- Adds moisture and fat, so the bread stays tender rather than dry when fried.
- Egg
- Coats the slices and sets in the pan, binding the coating and helping it brown.
The step that matters
Frying until brown on both sides. Frying over enough heat browns the egg coating through the Maillard reaction, adding flavour and colour. Too little heat leaves the bread pale and soggy, while too much can scorch the outside before the inside is warm.
“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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