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Ham and Egg Toast

A toasted bread topped with butter, seasoned cold ham, and a boiled egg.

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

Ham and Egg Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the toast

  1. Toast the slices of bread.

  2. Butter the toast.

  3. Spread the chopped and seasoned cold ham on the toast.

Cook the egg and assemble

  1. Drop the egg into boiling salted water until the white is set.

  2. Place the cooked egg on top of the ham.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the base that holds the toppings and gives a crisp, toasted contrast.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the toast and helps it brown.
Cold ham
Provides savoury, salty flavour and a chewy texture as the topping.
Egg
Sets when cooked, adding richness and a soft, creamy layer on top.

The step that matters

Poaching the egg until the white is set. Egg white proteins set with heat, so the white turns opaque and firm. Stopping at that point keeps the yolk soft. Cooking too long makes the yolk firm and chalky.

“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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