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Bread

Ham Toast

A savory toast topped with a ham and anchovy mixture, spiced with cayenne and mace, folded into eggs and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Ham Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the cooked ham and anchovy finely.

  2. Add cayenne pepper and ground mace.

  3. Beat the eggs and mix them with the ham mixture.

  4. Add just enough milk to keep the mixture moist.

Heat and serve

  1. Heat the mixture thoroughly and serve it on small rounds of toast or fried bread.

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

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

  2. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the ham mixture and set during heating to hold it together.
Cooked ham
Provides the main savoury body and meaty flavour of the topping.
Anchovy
Adds a salty, savoury depth that enhances the ham's flavour.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mixture stays soft rather than dry.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture thoroughly. Eggs must be heated enough to set and thicken the mixture; underheating leaves it runny and wet, while overheating can make the eggs curdle and turn grainy and tough.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, anchovy, pepper, egg, milk, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, anchovy, pepper, egg, milk, bread. 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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