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Ham on Toast

A toasted bread topped with a mixture of chopped ham, mustard, cayenne, and cooked egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and mustard work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 747 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Ham on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Chop the ham very fine.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the egg yolks until light and mix them with the ham.

  2. Add mustard, cayenne, and stir over low heat until the eggs are cooked.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately on squares of buttered toast.

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. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

  2. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks cook and thicken over low heat, binding the ham into a soft, spreadable mixture.
Ham
Provides the savory meaty base and the main flavor of the filling.
Mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the egg yolks.

The step that matters

Stirring over low heat until the eggs are cooked. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set, but high heat can overcook them and make them grainy or scrambled. Gentle, constant stirring over low heat gives a smooth, creamy texture.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Welsh onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg. 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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