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Ham and Egg Cutlets

A savory cutlet made with ham, egg, flour, butter, milk, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hamilton, Margaret · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Ham and Egg Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Add 1 dessertspoonful of flour and 1 oz. cooked ham.

  2. Add 1 dessertspoonful of butter, pinch pepper and salt.

  3. Add 1 teacupful of milk and some nutmeg.

  4. Add 1 hard-boiled egg.

  5. Put flour and butter into a saucepan; mix together; add milk and seasoning; allow to boil five minutes; remove from fire; then add ham and egg, chopped very fine; turn mixture onto a plate to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape with a floured hand into cutlets; brush over with egg, toss in bread crumbs, and fry in fat.

Serve

  1. Serve with tomato sauce.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

784Calories
27 gProtein
26 gFat
108 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78

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

By Hamilton, Margaret. 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a smooth sauce as its starch cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and carries the flour into a smooth roux.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a binding sauce.
Hard-boiled egg
Adds body and firmness to the chopped filling so it holds together.
Cooked ham (in the method)
Provides the savoury meaty flavour of the filling.

The step that matters

Boiling the sauce and cooling it fully. Boiling the flour, butter and milk for five minutes cooks the starch, so the sauce thickens and loses its raw floury taste. Cooling the mixture fully before shaping lets it firm up, so the cutlets keep their shape in the pan.

“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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