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Ham Toast

A toasted bread slice topped with a hot ham mixture flavored with rabbit stock, cream, nutmeg, and cayenne.

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 ↓

Ham Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Mince the cooked ham as finely as possible.

Make the topping

  1. In a small saucepan, combine the minced ham, rabbit stock, cream (or milk), nutmeg, and cayenne.

  2. Heat the mixture over a gentle fire until hot throughout.

Toast and serve

  1. Toast the slice of bread and butter it.

  2. Serve the hot ham mixture on the buttered toast.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Rabbit + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked ham
Provides the main savory meat flavour and the body of the topping.
Rabbit stock
Adds moisture and savoury depth so the minced ham forms a spreadable mixture.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the ham a softer, smoother texture.
Bread
Forms the crisp base that holds the hot ham mixture.

The step that matters

Heating the ham mixture gently. Heating over a gentle fire lets the mixture warm through without boiling or scorching. High heat can toughen the proteins in cream and dry out the minced meat, and a dairy mixture that boils hard may curdle or stick to the pan.

“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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