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Fried Ham

A slice of ham fried with sugar and milk gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fried Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the rind from the ham.

  2. Heat a skillet over high heat.

Fry the ham

  1. Fry the ham for 1 minute on each side.

  2. Move the ham to a cooler part of the stove.

  3. Fry the ham for 10 minutes on each side.

  4. Sprinkle the ham with sugar after the last turn.

Make the gravy

  1. Pour the milk into the skillet.

  2. Stir the sediment. Bring to a boil.

  3. Pour the milk gravy over the ham.

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. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Ham + milktop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,089 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,084 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Ham
Provides the main meat and fat that browns and flavours the dish.
Granulated sugar
Sprinkled on the ham to add sweetness and help it caramelise and brown.
Milk
Reduces with the pan sediment to form a creamy gravy that moistens the ham.

The step that matters

Fry the ham on a cooler part of the stove. Moving the ham off high heat after the initial sear lets it cook through for the long fry without burning the sugar and milk solids 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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