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HAil Toast

A toast topped with cold boiled ham and a thickened egg mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

HAil Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham and toast

  1. Chop the cold boiled ham very fine.

  2. Toast the slices of bread and butter them.

  3. Lay the ham on the toast and place in the oven for a few minutes.

Make the egg sauce

  1. Beat the eggs with milk, salt, and pepper.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into a saucepan with a lump of butter and stir until thick, but do not boil.

Serve

  1. Put the ham and toast on a platter, pour the eggs over, and 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken into a creamy sauce that coats the toast when gently heated.
Milk
Thins the beaten eggs so they pour smoothly and set softer.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the toast and the egg sauce.
Cold boiled ham
Provides the savory, salty meat flavor that the dish is built around.
Slices of stale bread
Act as the sturdy base that holds the ham and sauce while absorbing flavor.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture without boiling. Egg proteins thicken as they warm, but if the mixture boils they overcook and turn grainy or curdled. Gentle heat and constant stirring keep it smooth and thick.

“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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