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, Fried
Ingredients
Directions
Fry the ham
Melt a little bacon fat or dripping in a frying pan.
Add the slices of ham and fry gently until cooked, turning them six to eight times to prevent hardness.
If the ham is very hard and salty, soak it in hot water for 8 to 10 minutes, then drain and dry it.
Cut off the rind from the ham slices.
Place the ham slices in a clean cold frying pan and turn them two to three times while cooking.
Transfer the ham to a hot dish.
Poach and serve the eggs
If the fat is discolored, poach the eggs separately.
Break the eggs carefully, keeping the yolks intact, and slip them into the pan.
Gather the whites over the yolks with two spoons to shape the eggs like a ball.
Remove the poached eggs with a slotted spoon, drain the fat, and place them on the ham.
Serve immediately.
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
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Whites set around the yolks to hold a rounded shape while the yolks stay soft.
- Bacon fat or dripping
- Hot fat fries the ham, adding browning and savory flavor to the meat.
- Slices of ham
- Main savory meat, whose surface browns in the fat and whose salt gives the dish its flavor.
The step that matters
Break the eggs carefully, keeping the yolks intact. Egg whites set quickly in hot fat, and a broken yolk spreads and sets into the whites. Keeping the yolk whole lets the white wrap around it and form a neat, rounded egg.
“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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