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Ham and Eggs

A dish of sliced ham served with eggs, prepared by broiling or frying and served with ham gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,475 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Ham and Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Cut the ham into thin slices, about ¼ to ⅜ inch thick.

  2. Trim off the rind and excess fat.

  3. Broil the ham slices.

  4. Spread a little butter over the ham slices.

Poach the eggs

  1. Poach the eggs in salted water.

  2. Place the poached eggs neatly on top of the ham.

Make the gravy and fry

  1. Heat a little butter in a skillet.

  2. Add the ham to the skillet.

  3. Once cooked, pour off the clear fat.

  4. Rinse the skillet with hot water.

  5. Pour the hot water over the ham as gravy.

  6. Fry the eggs in the ham gravy.

  7. Remove any sediment from the gravy.

  8. Add the clear fat back to the skillet.

  9. Break the eggs into a saucer.

  10. Pour the eggs into the skillet.

  11. Baste the tops with hot fat until cooked to your liking.

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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

  2. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the savory meaty flavour, and its fat and drippings become the gravy.
Eggs
Set into a soft, tender structure when poached and fried, forming the dish's main body.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the ham brown in the skillet.

The step that matters

Baste the tops with hot fat until cooked to your liking.. Spooning hot fat over the eggs sets the white and cooks the top without a firm, hard film forming on the yolk. Heat that is too high toughens the whites, so the fat should be hot but not smoking.

“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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