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German Toast

Savory toast topped with a mixture of fricassee, eggs, and breadcrumbs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

German Toast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the fricassee or hash finely with parsley, onion, pepper, and salt.

  2. Add the beaten egg.

  3. Stew in gravy until reduced and thickened.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pile it on square pieces of toast.

  2. Top with slices of hard-boiled egg.

  3. Brush with beaten egg.

  4. Sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

  6. Squeeze lemon juice over before serving.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Beaten egg
Binds the chopped filling so it holds together when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on top during baking.
Fricassee or hash
Forms the savoury base of the filling.
Gravy
Adds moisture and flavour, thickening as it reduces.

The step that matters

Stew in gravy until reduced and thickened. The filling must cook down until thick enough to hold its shape on the toast. If it stays loose, it will run and soften the bread while baking. Cooling it afterwards lets it firm up further before assembly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, pepper, egg, bread, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, pepper, egg, bread, lemon. 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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