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Scrambled Eggs with Ham

Scrambled eggs cooked with butter, pepper, salt, milk, and chopped ham.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Scrambled Eggs with Ham

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add pepper, salt, and milk; stir to combine.

  3. When hot, crack in the eggs and gently cut and scrape them from the bottom with a knife.

  4. Add the chopped ham and cook until the eggs are set.

  5. Serve immediately in a hot dish.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into soft curds that give the scrambled eggs their body.
Butter
Adds richness and keeps the eggs from sticking to the pan.
Milk
Adds moisture so the scrambled eggs stay tender rather than dry.
Ham
Adds savory flavor and chew to the finished eggs.

The step that matters

Cutting and scraping the eggs over medium heat. Egg proteins set quickly over heat. Gently folding the eggs from the bottom forms small, soft curds. Leaving them unstirred or cooking too hot makes them tough and dry.

“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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