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Laver on Buttered Toast

A toast topped with butter and a warm laver (seaweed) mixture flavored with hock and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Laver on Buttered Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the laver mixture

  1. Warm the hock in a saucepan.

  2. Add the laver and lemon juice, stirring until heated through.

  3. Remove from heat immediately.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread butter on toast and top with the warm laver mixture.

  2. Serve hot.

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.

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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. White wine + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together827 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Hock or white wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the warm laver mixture.
Laver
Provides the main seaweed flavour and the body of the topping.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the laver.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the topping sit on the toast.
Bread
Forms the base that holds and soaks up the warm topping.

The step that matters

Remove from heat immediately. Once the laver is heated through, keeping it on the heat can overcook the seaweed, making it tough and dull in flavour. Taking the pan off the heat right away keeps it tender and fresh-tasting.

Swap the seaweed

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, lemon, butter, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Seaweedthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, lemon, butter, bread. 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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