Name: Italian Ham Toast
Ingredients: 3 hard boiled eggs; 1 cup chopped ham; 6 slices of toast; ½ pint cream sauce

Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Italian Ham Toast

Ingredients

3 hard boiled eggs
1 cup chopped ham
6 slices of toast
½ pint cream sauce

Directions

Prepare the filling

Chop the whites of the eggs finely and press the yolks through a vegetable press.
Mix part of the cream sauce with the chopped whites.

Assemble and serve

Pour the remaining cream sauce onto a hot platter.
Spread the slices of toast with the creamed whites, then add the chopped ham, and top with the sifted yolks.
Sprinkle any surplus ham and sifted yolks over the cream sauce.
Place the slices of toast on top and warm in the oven for a few moments.

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.

Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,526 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ham + saucetop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,314 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ham + creamtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,370 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Eggs: Whites bind with cream sauce to form a soft spread, while pressed yolks add a crumbly topping.
Ham: Adds salty, savoury flavour and chewy texture against the soft creamed layers.
Toast: Provides a crisp base that holds the creamed filling without going soggy.
Cream sauce: Supplies moisture and richness that coats the ham and eggs and keeps the toast tender.

“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.