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Cheese and Egg Toast

Toasted bread topped with a cheese‑egg paste, anchovy spread, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cheese and Egg Toast

six pieces

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Hard boil the eggs, then pound them in a mortar with enough cream to make a paste.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper and coarse sea salt, then mix in the grated cheese.

Assemble and bake

  1. Toast the round of bread, cut off the crust, butter it, and cut it into six pieces.

  2. Spread each piece thinly with anchovy paste, then pile the egg mixture on top.

  3. Cover each piece with bread crumbs and add a tiny bit of butter on top.

  4. Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven to heat, then 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Form the bulk of the filling, giving it body and a rich, soft texture.
Cream
Moistens the pounded egg so it binds into a spreadable paste.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and richness to the egg filling.
Anchovy paste
Contributes a salty, savory depth under the egg layer.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven to heat, then serve.. Heating only until warm keeps the egg filling soft and moist; overheating dries it out and can make the bread crumbs scorch before the filling is hot through.

“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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