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Cold Boiled Ham

A fried ham and egg mixture made with cold boiled ham, eggs, milk, flour, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Cold Boiled Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped ham, egg yolks, milk, flour, and pepper. Stir until smooth.

  2. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. If desired, add chopped onion to the mixture before cooking.

Cook

  1. In a frying pan, heat the lard and butter over medium heat.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the pan and cook until set, being careful not to brown too much.

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

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

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 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

Egg whites
Beaten whites fold in air, giving the cooked spoonfuls a light, airy texture.
Egg yolks
Yolks add richness and help bind the mixture as it sets in the pan.
Flour
Starch thickens the batter slightly so the spoonfuls hold their shape.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.

The step that matters

Cook until set without over-browning. Over-high heat or long cooking browns the outside before the egg in the centre sets, leaving the cakes dry or scorched. Medium heat lets the proteins coagulate evenly throughout.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, egg, milk, flour, pepper, butter):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg, milk, flour, pepper, 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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