Skip to main content
Main

Meat Toast

A toast topped with a savory mixture of minced roast, gravy, eggs, parsley, onion, and bread crumbs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Meat Toast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Finely mince the cold roast.

  2. Mix the minced roast with gravy, eggs, parsley, and onion.

  3. Stir the mixture over low heat until thick.

  4. Let it cool, then spread it on pieces of toast.

Bake and serve

  1. Brush the top with beaten egg and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

  3. Before serving, squeeze a little lemon juice over the 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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast
Provides the main meaty body of the topping.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it as it heats, giving a firmer texture.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor so the meat stays tender.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it cooks into the mixture.
Bread crumbs
Help form a crisp, browned top during baking.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture over low heat until thick. Eggs can scramble or curdle if heated too fast. Gentle heat lets the egg proteins thicken the mixture smoothly, so it holds together when spread on toast.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes