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Ham Toast

A toast topped with a hot mixture of milk, flour, ham, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Ham Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Thicken the milk with flour, stirring constantly.

  3. Add the chopped ham and boil for 3 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the buttered toast.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Milk + hamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,089 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 that the flour thickens into a sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the sauce body.
Egg
Enriches the sauce and helps it set slightly when gently heated.
Ham
Adds savory flavor and meaty texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg off the heat. Egg proteins set at high heat and can scramble into lumps. Removing the pan from the heat before adding the egg lets it blend smoothly into the sauce.

“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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