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German Toast

German Toast is a bread dish topped with a mixture of leftover fricassee, eggs, parsley, shallot, and lemon juice, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

German Toast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the topping

  1. Finely chop the leftover fricassee or ragout and mix with parsley, shallot or chive, and beaten eggs.

  2. Put the mixture with its gravy in a saucepan and let it reduce and thicken over heat.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool, then toast slices of bread.

Assemble and bake

  1. Spread the mixture thickly on the toasted bread.

  2. Boil an egg hard, cut it into small pieces, and place them on top.

  3. Brush the toast with beaten egg, sprinkle with breadcrumbs, and bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C).

Serve

  1. Squeeze a little lemon juice on top before serving.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Shallot + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

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

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

Leftover fricassee or ragout
Forms the savoury base, and its gravy thickens into a spreadable topping as it reduces.
Eggs
Bind the chopped mixture and set into a firmer topping when heated.
Bread
Provides the toasted base that holds the thick topping.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury topping.

The step that matters

Reduce the mixture until thick. If the gravy is not reduced enough, the mixture stays runny and soaks into the toast. Cooling before spreading lets it hold its shape on the bread.

“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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