Name: Ham and Tongue Toast
Ingredients: 1 thick slice of bread; 2 tablespoons butter, divided; small quantity of ham or tongue, grated; 2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

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 Tongue Toast

Ingredients

1 thick slice of bread
2 tablespoons butter, divided
small quantity of ham or tongue, grated
2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Directions

Prepare the toast

Toast the slice of bread and butter both sides.

Make the topping

In a stewpan, combine the grated ham or tongue, chopped hard-boiled eggs, 1 tablespoon of butter, salt, and cayenne.
Heat the mixture until hot.

Assemble and serve

Spread the hot mixture thickly on the buttered toast.
Serve immediately while 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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread: Provides the crisp, toasted base that holds the warm topping.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture, and browns the toast slightly as it is heated.
Ham or tongue: Supplies the savoury, meaty flavour that forms the main body of the topping.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add body and a soft, creamy texture to the topping.

“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.