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Toasts, Hamburg

A toasted bread topped with seasoned minced meat, egg yolk, hard‑boiled egg, lemon juice, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Toasts, Hamburg

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Mince leftover meat finely and mix with seasoning and sauce.

  2. Stir mixture over gentle heat until thick, then remove from heat and mix in beaten egg yolk.

  3. Return to heat and stir until hot, but do not let it boil.

  4. Transfer mixture to a dish and let it cool.

Assemble and serve

  1. Toast bread slices on both sides and cut into triangular pieces.

  2. Spread savoury mince thickly on toast and top with chopped hard-boiled egg.

  3. Squeeze lemon juice over toasts and place them in preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1–2 minutes until hot.

  4. Arrange on a dish and serve immediately, garnished with parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Leftover savoury fricassee
Provides the main savoury filling, with its sauce binding the minced meat together.
Egg yolk
Thickens the mixture as it gently heats, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
Bread
Forms the crisp toasted base that holds the savoury mince.
Hard-boiled egg
Adds a firm, mild topping with extra texture against the soft filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury filling.

The step that matters

Return the egg yolk mixture to heat without boiling. Egg yolk thickens through gentle heat, but boiling can curdle it and leave the filling grainy and thin.

“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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