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Fried Eggs

A simple dish of eggs fried in hot lard, seasoned with salt and pepper, served with fried ham.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and ham 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 ↓

Fried Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the eggs into a saucer to check for quality.

  2. Heat lard in a frying pan.

Fry and serve

  1. Gently slide the eggs from the saucer into the hot lard.

  2. Do not turn the eggs over while cooking.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Serve with fried ham.

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. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + hamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

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

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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 firm white while the yolk stays soft, forming the main structure of the dish.
Lard
Conducts heat to the eggs and adds fat, so they fry rather than steam and the edges crisp.

The step that matters

Gently slide the eggs into the hot lard. Hot fat sets the egg white quickly on contact, keeping the shape intact. Cold fat or rough handling lets the white spread and turn tough or ragged.

“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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