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Savoury Toasts

Savory toasts made with buttered bread, mustard, cheese, ham, and cayenne, fried and melted in a Dutch oven.

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 ↓

Savoury Toasts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the bread into ½ inch thick slices, about 2.5 inches square.

  2. Butter the tops of the bread slices thickly.

  3. Spread a little mustard on each slice.

Top and fry

  1. Cover with a deep layer of grated cheese and minced ham seasoned with cayenne.

  2. Fry in good butter without turning them in the pan.

Finish

  1. Lift them out and place in a Dutch oven for 3 minutes to melt the cheese.

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. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Cheese
Melts into a rich, gooey layer that binds the topping and adds savory flavor.
Ham
Adds salty, meaty flavor and texture to the savory topping.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and browns the bread as it fries.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor that cuts through the richness of the cheese and butter.
Bread
Provides a sturdy base that crisps in the butter while holding the topping.

The step that matters

Fry in good butter without turning them in the pan.. Turning would disturb the cheese and ham layer. Leaving the toasts undisturbed lets the bottom brown and crisp while the topping stays in place.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. 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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