Name: Cheese and Egg Toast
Ingredients: three cups of sweet milk; two cups of boiling water; a cup of cheese crumbs into half a pint of rich milk; a pint of rich milk; two eggs well beaten; six eggs; two lemons; salt; pepper

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Cheese and Egg Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Put a cup of cheese crumbs into half a pint of rich milk ; boil until it melts. Have two eggs well beaten. Season the milk with salt, pepper and butter to taste. Turn in the eggs ; stir rapidly for a few minutes ; remove from the fire and spread it over some hot slices of toasted bread. Cut them in halves and quarters, and serve on a hot platter.
LEMON TOAST. I
Take the yolks of six eggs, beat well, and add three cups of sweet milk ; take bread, not too stale, and cut into slices ; dip them into the milk and eggs, and fry in butter to a delicate brown ; take the whites of the six eggs and beat to a froth ; add a large cup white sugar and two cups of boiling water, and the juice of two lemons ; serve over the toast as a sauce, and you will have a delicious supper dish.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

358Calories

22 gProtein

23 gFat

18 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Cheese	1 oz (28g) cheddar	113
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Water	not in our table	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed. 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. See the original page.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,426 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,861 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

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