Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Ham and Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the ham
Heat a steel spider over high heat.
Add the ham and sear it, turning until the fat is golden brown.
Remove the ham from the heat and cut it into six small pieces, arranging them on a hot platter.
Fry the eggs and serve
Break the eggs into the fat, ensuring it is not too hot to bubble.
Spoon the fat over the eggs until a white film forms on the yolks.
Transfer the eggs onto the slices of ham and serve immediately, garnished with cress and lemon slices.
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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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,526 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,058 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Ham + lemontop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,788 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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
- Eggs
- Set into a tender white and a yolk that stays soft, forming the main body of the dish.
- Ham
- Its rendered fat cooks the eggs, and the seared meat adds savoury flavour.
The step that matters
Keeping the fat below bubbling when the eggs go in. If the fat is too hot, the egg whites fry harshly, turn brown and crisp at the edges, and the texture becomes tough. Gentle heat sets the whites evenly while the yolks stay runny.
“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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