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Ham, Bacon, or Pork, to Fry

Slices of ham, bacon, or pork are soaked, boiled, trimmed, and fried, then seasoned with pepper and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,314 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Ham, Bacon, or Pork, to Fry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the slices in warm water for at least 1 hour, changing the water 2-3 times to reduce saltiness.

  2. If needed, boil the slices briefly to extract more salt.

  3. Trim off all rind and dry the slices thoroughly.

Fry and season

  1. Heat a well-greased pan and fry the slices quickly until browned, turning as necessary.

  2. Season with pepper and sauce to taste.

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. Ham + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Pepper + saucetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Pepper and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 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

Ham, bacon, or pork slices
Provide the meat that browns in the pan and carries the main flavour of the dish.
Warm water
Draws out surface salt during soaking, reducing the saltiness of the cured meat.

The step that matters

Soaking and drying the slices. Soaking removes excess salt from cured meat, and thorough drying lets the surface brown in the pan instead of steaming. Skipping either leaves the slices too salty or pale.

“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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