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 ↓
Sayoury Toasts
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Butter the tops of the bread slices thickly.
Spread a little mustard on each slice.
Cook and serve
Cover with a deep layer of grated cheese and minced ham seasoned with cayenne.
Fry in good butter without turning them in the pan.
Lift them out and place in a Dutch oven for 3 minutes to melt the cheese.
Serve very hot.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,130 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,536 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,430 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread
- Forms the base that holds the toppings and crisps when fried.
- Grated english cheese
- Melts into a creamy layer that binds the toast together.
- Minced ham
- Adds savoury meaty flavour and body to the topping.
- Butter
- Adds richness and promotes browning on the bread as it fries.
- Mustard
- Adds sharp, tangy flavour that cuts through the rich cheese.
The step that matters
Fry without turning. Turning the toasts can disturb the cheese and ham topping and break up the layer. Frying undisturbed lets the bottom brown evenly while the butter crisps the bread.
Swap the mustard
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, cheese, ham, pepper):
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Mustardthe original
- Tomatofits about as well
- Potatofits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, cheese, ham, pepper. 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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