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Marie Paidar

Ham and egg coated in bread crumbs, fried, served hot or cold, with a baked variation topped with cheese and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Paidar, Marie, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Marie Paidar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coating

  1. Cook bread crumbs in the milk and rub to a smooth paste.

  2. Mix it with the ham, add mustard, cayenne and the raw egg. Mix well.

Coat and fry

  1. Remove the shells from the eggs and cover with the mixture.

  2. Fry in hot fat two minutes, drain and serve hot or cold.

Serve

  1. Cut in halves lengthwise and arrange each half on a bed of fine parsley.

Make the egg cup version

  1. Cut eggs in halves crosswise.

  2. Remove yolks and stand cups thus formed in ramekins or shallow baking dish.

  3. Cream butter and yolks well, add onion, parsley seasoning, form into balls, fill egg cups.

  4. Pour over these the white sauce, sprinkle with cheese and brown in oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1199Calories
63 gProtein
50 gFat
121 gCarbs

Counts 11 of 12 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 11 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Pork100g cooked242
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Cheese1 oz (28g) cheddar113
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Saucenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Paidar, Marie, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp. 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. See the original page.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hard boiled eggs
Form the core that the ham mixture encases.
Stale bread crumbs
Soaked in milk, they bind the ham mixture and keep it moist.
Raw egg
Binds the ham mixture so it holds around the eggs.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the creamed yolk filling.
White sauce
Provides a creamy, moist layer beneath the browned topping.
American cheese
Melts and browns on top in the oven.

The step that matters

Cover the eggs evenly with the mixture. A thin or broken coating leaves bare spots where hot fat reaches the egg and the layer can split open while frying. An even, unbroken layer seals the egg and keeps the coating intact.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, bread, milk, cheese, sauce, egg, butter. 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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