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Baltimore Toast

A toasted bread topped with butter, ham, egg, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baltimore Toast

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Stir in the cream and then add the chopped ham.

  3. Add all ingredients except the egg and stir until heated, ensuring the ham does not harden.

  4. During stirring, add the light stock.

  5. Once hot, remove from heat and beat in the egg.

  6. Reheat gently but do not boil.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Mustard + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + cheesetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 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

Egg
Thickens the mixture as it sets gently with heat, giving a creamy, spreadable texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and helping the mixture stay smooth.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the mixture into a smooth, spreadable consistency.
Cooked ham
Provides the savoury, meaty base of the dish.

The step that matters

Once hot, remove from heat and beat in the egg.. Egg proteins set when heated, so if the mixture is too hot or boils after the egg goes in, it can curdle and turn grainy. Removing it from the heat first and reheating gently keeps it smooth.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, egg, butter, cream, mustard, nutmeg, cheese):

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg, butter, cream, mustard, nutmeg, cheese. 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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