Skip to main content
Main

Ham Toasts, or Croutes Au Jam Bon

Ham toasts made with bread, butter, Parmesan, and raw Yorkshire ham, baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Toasts, or Croutes Au Jam Bon

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the bread

  1. Cut slices of bread about ¼ inch thick and scoop out the center to a depth of ⅛ inch and about 2 inches in diameter.

  2. Dip the slices in melted butter and cover with grated Parmesan cheese.

  3. Place a piece of raw Yorkshire ham in each scooped-out cavity.

  4. Form sandwiches by putting two pieces of bread together.

Bake and serve

  1. Place on a baking dish with a little clarified butter and bake at 350 °F (175 °C) until light brown, turning to bake both sides evenly.

  2. Drain on a cloth or blotting paper and serve hot on a napkin.

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. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Bread + parmesan cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together577 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the crisp base that holds the ham and cheese while it toasts.
Melted butter
Carries fat to the bread, promoting even browning and a rich flavour.
Grated parmesan cheese
Melts and browns on the surface, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.
Raw yorkshire ham
Provides the salty, meaty filling that cooks through inside the cavity.

The step that matters

Turning the sandwiches while baking. Turning the toasts lets both sides brown evenly, since heat from the dish reaches the underside first. Uneven turning leaves one side pale and the raw ham under-cooked.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes