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Barbecued Eggs and Ham

A skillet dish of eggs and minced ham cooked with butter, onion, oil, vinegar, and pepper, served on buttered toast moistened with stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Barbecued Eggs and Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham mixture

  1. Heat the butter in a skillet.

  2. Fry the grated onion in the butter until fragrant.

  3. Combine the minced ham, pepper, salad oil, and vinegar in a bowl. Let the mixture stand covered for 2 hours in a cool place.

Cook and serve

  1. Stir the ham mixture into the skillet and cook, stirring constantly, until hot throughout.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and cook until just set, but not hard.

  3. Serve the mixture on buttered toast moistened with a little stock.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when heated to bind the mixture into a soft, tender curd.
Cold boiled ham
Provides savoury meat flavour and body to the egg mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the onion and the pan.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich ham and egg.

The step that matters

Cooking the eggs until just set, but not hard. Eggs turn tough and rubbery when overcooked, because the proteins tighten and squeeze out water. Removing them while still soft keeps the texture moist and tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ham, pepper, vinegar, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, pepper, vinegar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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