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Ham and Egg Soup

A soup made with ham bone broth, rice, and poached eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,379 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Ham and Egg Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil the ham bone in 1 quart of cold water until the liquid is reduced by half.

  2. Strain the stock from the meat and bones into a bowl.

Cook the soup

  1. Add the ham broth and ½ cup of well-soaked rice to the stock.

  2. Simmer until the rice is soft, skimming often.

Serve

  1. Pour the soup into a tureen and lay the poached eggs neatly on top.

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. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Ham + ricetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together477 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

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

  5. Egg + ricetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,350 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham bone
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water as it simmers, giving the stock its body.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and softens as it simmers, thickening the soup slightly.
Poached eggs
Add richness and substance as a topping that enriches each bowl.

The step that matters

Simmer until the rice is soft, skimming often. Rice keeps absorbing liquid and can turn mushy if overcooked. Skimming removes foam and fat that would otherwise cloud the broth and taste greasy.

“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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