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Broiled Ham and Eggs

A simple dish of broiled ham slices topped with poached eggs, served with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,475 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Broiled Ham and Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Broil the thin slices of ham until cooked.

  2. Add a bit of butter on each slice of ham.

Poach and serve

  1. Poach the eggs in water.

  2. Place one poached egg neatly on each piece of 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. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the savoury, meaty base that the egg rests on.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the ham taste rounder and moister.
Eggs
Set when poached, giving a soft, runny yolk that enriches the dish.

The step that matters

Poach the eggs in water. Eggs poached in gently simmering water hold their shape when the proteins set around the yolk. Water that boils too hard tears the whites apart, so the eggs spread out and lose their neat form.

“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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