Name: Toast
Ingredients: several slices of bread; anchovy butter; anchovies; 1 hard-boiled egg, chopped fine; parsley, chopped fine; capers

Why it works: Parsley and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the bread into even slices.
Spread anchovy butter on each slice.

Top and serve

Cut anchovies into small strips and lay them on the bread.
Spread the chopped hard-boiled egg over the anchovies.
Sprinkle chopped parsley on top.
Garnish with capers and arrange on a dish with parsley sprigs in the center.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,550 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Anchovy + caperstop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together473 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,260 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).
Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,330 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies: Provide the salty, savory flavor that is the main taste of the toast.
Anchovy butter: Adds fat and salty richness and helps the toppings stick to the bread.
Hard-boiled egg: Adds soft, creamy texture and a mild richness over the anchovies.

“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.