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Ham and Egg on Toast

A toasted bread topped with chopped ham and a cooked egg mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the toast

  1. Toast and butter the slices of bread.

  2. Spread the chopped ham on the bread and place in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 3 minutes.

Make the egg mixture

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs with the milk, pepper, and salt.

  2. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  3. Add the egg mixture and stir until it begins to thicken.

  4. Remove from heat and beat for 1 minute.

Assemble

  1. Spread the egg mixture on the toast and 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a creamy, tender mixture that holds the topping together on the toast.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the eggs so they stay tender rather than dry.
Cold boiled ham
Provides savory, salty flavour and the meaty base of the toast.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the bread and to the pan where the egg mixture cooks.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs over medium heat. Eggs turn from creamy to rubbery and grainy if they cook too fast or too long. Keep stirring and take them off the heat as soon as they begin to thicken, since they keep setting from residual heat.

“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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