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Egg Toast

Egg Toast is a toasted bread topped with a mixture of boiled egg whites, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Egg Toast

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the toast

  1. Cut rounds of stale bread and toast them.

  2. Moisten the toast slightly with a mixture of butter and water.

  3. Lightly sprinkle with paprika and dust with celery salt.

Make the topping

  1. Chop the whites of the hard-boiled eggs very fine.

  2. Mix the chopped egg whites with the drawn butter.

  3. Spread the mixture on the toast and season with salt, pepper, and parsley.

  4. Rub the yolks through a colander to create a yellow powder and cover the sauce.

Bake and serve

  1. Place in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for three minutes and serve.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 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

Stale bread
Forms the toasted base that holds the egg topping.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the toast from drying out.
Hard-boiled eggs
Provide the main savory body of the topping, with whites chopped and yolks sieved.
Drawn butter
Binds the chopped egg whites and adds fat for a smooth, rich spread.

The step that matters

Place in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for three minutes and serve.. Only a brief time in a hot oven is needed to warm the topping and toast without drying or overcooking the egg and butter. Leaving it too long can dry the topping and scorch the paprika.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, egg, pepper, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, egg, pepper, parsley. 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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