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Ham Croutes

A fried bread croûte topped with a ham and cream mixture, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Ham Croutes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the croûtes

  1. Use a round pastry cutter to stamp out pieces from the stale bread slices.

  2. Fry the bread pieces in hot fat until golden brown.

Make the ham mixture

  1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan.

  2. Add the chopped shallot and ham and stir over heat until hot.

  3. Add the egg yolks and cream to the ham mixture.

  4. Season with pepper and stir until thickened.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place about a tablespoon of the mixture on each croûte.

  2. Sprinkle with parsley.

  3. Serve immediately.

  4. Garnish with fried parsley.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Its dry crumb crisps well when fried, giving a sturdy base for the topping.
Butter
Melted butter adds richness and a rounded, savoury flavour to the ham mixture.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the ham mixture as they gently set, giving it a creamy body.
Ham
Cooked ham supplies the savoury, meaty flavour that carries the dish.
Cream
Cream adds moisture and richness, keeping the mixture smooth and spreadable.
Shallot
Shallot gives a mild onion aroma that softens as it cooks into the mixture.

The step that matters

Thickening the ham mixture. Stir the egg yolks and cream into the ham over gentle heat only until thickened. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures, so high heat or overcooking can curdle the mixture into grainy bits instead of a smooth spread.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, egg, pepper, ham, parsley, cream):

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, egg, pepper, ham, parsley, cream. 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.

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