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Egg-cheese Toast

A toast topped with egg whites, cheese sauce, and a boiled egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Egg-cheese Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the toast

  1. Prepare the toast.

  2. Spread a little extract of meat on each slice.

  3. Chop the whites of the hard-boiled egg.

  4. Place the chopped egg whites on one round of toast.

  5. Sprinkle with a little Parmesan cheese.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the flour. Stir until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the milk and the remaining extract of meat.

  3. Boil for a few minutes.

  4. Add seasoning to the sauce.

  5. Add the rest of the Parmesan cheese to the sauce.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spoon the sauce over the egg whites.

  2. Place the other round of toast on top.

  3. Cut into two or four pieces.

  4. Arrange on a dish.

  5. Pour the hot sauce over.

  6. Rub the yolks of the eggs through a wire sieve on top.

  7. Reheat briefly.

  8. 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + parmesan cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Melted with flour to form a roux that thickens the sauce.
Flour
Combines with melted butter to thicken the milk into a smooth sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and browning to the sauce and topping.
Hard-boiled egg
Provides a rich, savoury filling on the toast.

The step that matters

Stir the flour into the butter until smooth, then add the milk gradually. Adding liquid gradually while stirring keeps the starch in the flour dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

“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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