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Bread

Ham Toast

Ham Toast is a toasted bread topped with a cooked ham and egg mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Prepare the ham

  1. Boil the ham until cooked, then chop finely.

Make the topping

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped ham with the beaten eggs, butter, cream, and pepper.

  2. Stir the mixture over low heat until it thickens.

Assemble

  1. Remove the crusts from the bread slices and toast them.

  2. Spread the ham mixture over the toasted bread.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when heated, thickening the ham mixture into a spreadable topping.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the topping a smoother, softer texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the egg mixture soft rather than dry.
Lean ham
Provides the savoury, meaty flavour and the main body of the topping.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture over low heat until it thickens. Eggs set at gentle temperatures; high heat can overcook and curdle them, leaving a grainy rather than smooth topping.

“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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