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Ham Toast

Ham Toast is a toasted bread topped with a ham and cream mixture, sprinkled with breadcrumbs and parsley, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 Toast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Mix finely minced ham with enough cream to make a thin paste and boil for 5 minutes.

  2. Prepare a slice of well-buttered toast and spread the ham mixture on top.

  3. Sprinkle bread crumbs mixed with a little parsley over the ham mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Brown in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the savoury, meaty flavour that forms the body of the topping.
Cream
Binds the minced ham into a spreadable paste and adds moisture and richness.
Butter
Enriches the toast and encourages golden browning in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned top layer over the ham mixture.

The step that matters

Boiling the ham and cream paste. The paste must thicken enough to stay on the toast rather than soaking into it or running off. Boiling reduces the liquid and concentrates the cream, so the mixture spreads cleanly and holds its shape during baking.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Celeryfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, cream, butter, bread. 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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