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Luncheon Toast

A toast topped with a creamy egg mixture thickened with ham or tongue, served with lemon slices and cress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,526 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Luncheon Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the topping

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the cream in a bowl.

  2. Heat the mixture in a saucepan until hot.

  3. Thicken the mixture with grated ham or finely chopped tongue.

  4. Simmer for a few minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over buttered toast.

  2. Serve with lemon slices and cress.

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. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cream + hamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Ham + lemontop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,788 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Eggs
Yolks thicken with gentle heat, giving the mixture a creamy, set body.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the egg mixture softer and richer.
Grated ham or finely chopped tongue
Adds savoury flavour and substance to the mixture.

The step that matters

Simmer for a few minutes. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating can make them curdle and turn grainy. Keep the heat gentle and watch the mixture closely.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, ham):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raspberryfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Pineapplefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, ham. 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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