Why it works: Ham and egg 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 ↓
To Fry Ham
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the sliced ham in cold water overnight.
Remove the rind from the ham.
Cook
Fry the ham in a hot skillet in its own fat.
If serving with eggs, fry them in the ham fat.
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.
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Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Sliced ham
- Provides the meat and its own fat, which renders out to fry the ham and any eggs.
- Eggs
- Optional addition that cooks in the rendered ham fat, adding richness and a soft, set texture.
The step that matters
Fry the ham in a hot skillet in its own fat. A hot pan lets the ham's fat render and the surface brown quickly. If the pan is not hot enough, the ham steams in its own moisture and turns grey and chewy instead of crisp at the edges.
“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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