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Breakfast

Cheese Toast.— a Tasty Breakfast.

A toasted bread sandwich with cream cheese, eggs, and milk, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Cheese Toast.— a Tasty Breakfast.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix salt, milk, and beaten eggs.

  2. Dip each slice of bread in the mixture.

Cook

  1. Fry the bread on one side until light brown.

  2. Place a slice of cream cheese on each piece of bread as it is turned.

  3. Cover and cook until the underside is browned and cheese is melted.

Serve

  1. Garnish with parsley and serve on hot plates.

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 + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Milk + cream cheesetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  5. Bread + cream cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together166 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the soaking mixture and set into a custardy coating on the bread.
Milk
Adds moisture to the egg mixture so the bread softens without becoming soggy.
Bread
Serves as the base that absorbs the egg mixture and browns in the pan.
Cream cheese
Melts over the bread to add richness and a creamy topping.

The step that matters

Cover and cook until the underside is browned and cheese is melted. Covering traps steam so the cheese melts through while the underside browns. Cooking too hot or too long can scorch the bread before the egg coating sets and the cheese softens.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, cream cheese):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, cream 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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