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German Toast

A toasted bread topped with a creamy egg sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

German Toast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Slice the hard boiled eggs thinly.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion and cook until tender, without browning.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  4. Gradually add the milk, stirring until the mixture thickens.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the toast and arrange the egg slices around it before serving.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Hard boiled eggs
Provide the main body and richness of the dish as sliced garnish and filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries the flavour of the onion into the sauce.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and sweetness when cooked gently until tender without browning.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the melted butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as the flour starches set.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk, stirring until the mixture thickens. Adding milk slowly while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce becomes smooth instead of lumpy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, flour, milk):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, milk. 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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