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Caviar Toast

Toast topped with Russian caviar, lemon juice, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Caviar Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the egg dip

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg and milk until light.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip the slices of bread in the egg and milk mixture.

  2. Fry the dipped bread in a pan until golden brown.

  3. Place the fried bread on a plate and spread with Russian caviar.

  4. Sprinkle a few drops of lemon juice on each toast and serve 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.

  1. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Egg + caviartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together101 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Bread + caviartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together65 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

Egg
Binds the milk to the bread and sets to a golden, tender coating when fried.
Milk
Moistens the bread and adds softness to the coating as it cooks.
Bread
Acts as the base that absorbs the egg mixture and crisps when fried.
Russian caviar
Adds salty, briny flavour and a rich, delicate texture on top of the toast.

The step that matters

Fry the dipped bread until golden brown. Frying at a steady heat sets the egg coating and browns the surface, giving crisp edges and a cooked interior; too hot browns the outside before the egg sets, and too cool leaves the bread greasy and soggy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Pumpkinfits about as well
  4. Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, bread, caviar. 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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