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Eggs, Scrambled, with Ham

Scrambled eggs with ham, cooked in butter and milk, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Eggs, Scrambled, with Ham

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Break the eggs into the pan, add the milk, salt, and pepper.

  3. Whisk briskly until the eggs begin to set.

  4. Add the ham and stir well.

  5. Serve immediately on a hot dish, garnished with fried croutons and a little tomato sauce if desired.

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

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

  2. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a soft, tender curd as they cook, forming the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, coating the pan so the eggs cook gently without sticking.
Milk
Dilutes the egg proteins slightly, keeping the scrambled eggs softer and more moist.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and chewy texture against the soft eggs.

The step that matters

Whisk briskly until the eggs begin to set. Constant stirring over medium heat keeps the proteins forming small, soft curds. If the eggs sit still, they overcook into large, dry, rubbery clumps.

“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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