Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓
Egg Toast
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the toast
Toast the bread slices until golden brown.
Butter the toast generously.
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, heat the milk and whisk in the flour until thickened.
Season the sauce with butter, black pepper, and coarse sea salt.
Stir in the chopped egg whites.
Assemble and serve
Pour the sauce over the buttered toast.
Grate the egg yolks over the top before serving.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens when combined with flour.
- All-purpose flour
- Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it heats and whisks.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavour to the sauce and the toast.
- Egg whites
- Add body and set texture to the sauce as they cook into it.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and colour as a grated topping.
The step that matters
Thickening the sauce. Whisking the flour into the hot milk keeps it smooth; if it is not whisked well, lumps form and the sauce will not thicken evenly.
“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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