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Dropped Eggs with Ham

Eggs dropped into hot water, served on buttered toast with grated ham.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Dropped Eggs with Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Poach

  1. Heat a small pan of water until hot.

  2. Carefully drop the eggs into the water without breaking the yolks.

  3. Using a spoon, ladle hot water over the yolks until a white skin forms.

  4. Gently remove the eggs one at a time with an egg slice.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the eggs on buttered toast.

  2. Lightly rub the eggs with a little butter.

  3. Sprinkle grated ham over the eggs and serve immediately.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide the main body of the dish, setting when poached while the yolk stays runny.
Bread
Gives a crisp, sturdy base that holds the poached eggs.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the eggs.

The step that matters

Ladling hot water over the yolks. Spooning hot water over the eggs sets the whites into a skin that covers the yolk, helping the eggs keep their shape while the yolks stay soft. Dropping the eggs gently prevents the yolks from breaking.

“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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