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Ham and Egg Soup

A soup made with ham liquor, corn starch, milk, beaten eggs, parsley, and Boston crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Ham and Egg Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Skim the liquor from the cooked ham and reheat it until boiling.

  2. Stir in 2 tablespoons of corn starch mixed with ½ cup of milk.

  3. Take out 1 pint of the soup and slowly pour it over 4 beaten eggs while stirring well.

  4. Return the egg mixture to the soup along with a handful of finely minced parsley.

  5. Stir for 1 minute without letting it boil.

Serve

  1. Pour the soup over 6 split Boston crackers in a tureen.

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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Corn + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together943 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 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
Coagulate when heated, thickening the soup and giving it a rich body.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the soup body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the thickened soup.
Boston crackers
Soak up the soup, giving the dish a soft, bread-like base.

The step that matters

Stir for 1 minute without letting it boil. Egg proteins set when heated, so boiling after the eggs are added can curdle the soup and leave it grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, corn, milk, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, corn, milk, 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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