Why it works: Ham and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,526 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Ham and Egg
Ingredients
Directions
Fry the ham until cooked through, but not overcooked. Keep it hot.
Wet a cup with cold water and drop an egg into it.
Carefully lay the egg into the pan. Repeat for as many eggs as desired.
Let the eggs set a little before returning the pan to the heat to give them the appearance of poached eggs.
Dish the eggs neatly over the ham and pour the gravy over them.
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.
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Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,526 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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