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Laver on Buttered Toast

A simple dish of warm laver served on buttered toast with a splash of hock and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,832 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Laver on Buttered Toast

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Warm the laver in a saucepan with a few tablespoons of hock.

  2. Add a little lemon juice for flavor.

  3. Remove from heat and serve immediately on buttered toast.

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

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Seaweed + white winetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  3. Seaweed + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together36 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Laver
Forms the savoury, briny base that the dish is built around.
Hock (or white wine)
Adds moisture and acidity as the laver warms, loosening it into a spoonable texture.
Lemon juice
Adds brightness and acidity that lifts the mild, briny flavour of the laver.

Swap the seaweed

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

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

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