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Ham and Egg Lunch Loaf

A loaf of ham and egg baked with crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Ham and Egg Lunch Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the remnants of cold boiled ham, corned beef, or salt pork.

  2. Add crushed crackers and 3 to 6 eggs based on the amount of meat, then mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into a round baking powder can.

  2. Bake until set.

  3. Let cool, then slice when cold.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Ham + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,638 recipes

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

  3. Ham + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 recipes

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

  4. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pork + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,387 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the chopped meat and crackers and set into a firm, sliceable loaf.
Crushed crackers
Absorb moisture and add body so the loaf holds together when sliced.
Cold boiled ham
Provides the main meaty body and savory flavor of the loaf.
Corned beef
Adds savory, salty meat flavor and bulk to the loaf.
Salt pork
Adds savory fat and seasoning to the meat mixture.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves the loaf soft and likely to crumble when sliced, while the slices hold together best once fully set and cooled.

“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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