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Ham Toast

A toasted bread topped with a buttered ham and cream mixture, folded with eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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

Make the ham topping

  1. Melt the butter in a stew pan until slightly brown.

  2. Add the minced ham and enough cream to moisten it.

  3. Heat the mixture until hot, then quickly stir in the beaten eggs.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the mixture on buttered and moistened toast.

  2. Cut the toast into your desired shapes.

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

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when heated, binding the ham and cream into a soft, spreadable topping.
Butter
Adds richness and a nutty flavour as it browns slightly in the pan.
Cream
Moistens the ham so it stays tender rather than dry.
Ham
Provides the savoury, salty flavour that defines the topping.

The step that matters

Stirring in the beaten eggs. Eggs set when heated, so if the mixture is too hot or stirred too slowly it can turn grainy or scrambled. Stir quickly, once the mixture is hot, so the eggs thicken smoothly and evenly.

“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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