349. Cooked Bread

48:7 Regarding bread that was cooked or fried in butter or something similar, even if it no longer looks like bread, such as if it was coated with eggs, if it is in olive-sized pieces or larger, all the regular laws of bread apply. (Not all pieces need to be this large; even one will do the trick. – Mishnah Brurah 168:53.) On the other hand, if each piece is not olive-sized, even if cooking them caused them to swell up to olive-size, or if small pieces got stuck together while cooking and formed a large mass, or even if the pieces still look like bread, in all these cases it still does not count as bread and one says the bracha of mezonos before eating it and al hamichya after, even if one eats his fill. (Mishnah Brurah 168:56 says that if bread is fried, one must wash and bentch even if the pieces are smaller than olive-sized.) If one did not cook the bread but poured hot liquid over it, there is a doubt whether that is the same as cooking and which bracha should then be recited. Therefore, one should only eat such a thing as part of a meal for which he has already washed in order to eat regular bread. If bread was soaked in a liquid such as soup, then if it is less than an olive-sized piece, the matter depends on whether or not it still looks like bread. If it does, it is treated as regular bread; if not, then not. If the answer is no, then one says mezonos and al hamichya over them, even if he eats his fill. If the appearance of the liquid changed due to the bread being added, then they certainly no longer look like bread. Similarly, if bread is soaked in red wine, it no longer looks like bread. 48:8 One says the bracha of mezonos before and al hamichya after eating dough that was cooked, even if one ate his fill of it. This is true even if the dough was kneaded only with water. One also says mezonos and al hamichya over kernels of the five species of grain that were cooked, even if one ate his fill of them. If one ate them with soup, one does not say shehakol on the soup because it is subordinate to the grain. This is also true of other foods made of cooked dough that one eats in soup or in milk; in such cases one does not say a separate bracha on the liquid. However, if one cooked only a small amount of noodles or grain and the main focus is the liquid, then the liquid is not subordinate and one does say shehakol over it. The proper things to do in such a case is to say shehakol on the liquid majority and eat some, followed by saying mezonos over the noodles, which are still significant enough to call for their own blessing.