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Savoury Toast

Savory toast made with buttered bread, mustard, cheese, ham, and cayenne pepper, fried and melted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Savoury Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut bread into ½ inch thick, 2½ inch square slices.

  2. Butter the tops thickly.

  3. Spread a little mustard on each slice.

  4. Cover with a deep layer of grated cheese and seasoned ham.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry in good butter without turning them.

  2. Lift out of the pan and place in a Dutch oven for a few minutes to melt the cheese.

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

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

  2. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 crisps when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and promotes browning in the pan.
Grated cheese
Melts into a binding layer that adds richness and savory flavor.
Mustard
Adds sharp, acidic flavor that cuts through the richness of cheese and butter.
Ham
Contributes savory, salty meaty flavor to the topping.

The step that matters

Fry in good butter without turning them. Leaving the slices unturned lets the bottom brown evenly while the topping stays in place. Turning too early can slide off the cheese and break the bread's crust before it sets.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, cheese, ham, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, cheese, ham, pepper. 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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