Skip to main content
Main

Tortilla of Ham

A Spanish-style omelette made with ham, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Tortilla of Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the ham, then chop it.

  2. In a pan, melt the butter and add the chopped ham.

  3. Beat the eggs well and season them.

Cook the tortilla

  1. Pour the eggs into the pan with the ham and stir briefly.

  2. Let the tortilla set without sticking to the pan.

  3. When the bottom is slightly brown, flip it and brown the other side.

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

Eggs
Set into a firm, sliceable structure that holds the ham together.
Ham
Provides savoury flavour and chewy bite throughout the tortilla.
Butter
Adds richness and helps keep the tortilla from sticking while it cooks.

The step that matters

Let the tortilla set without sticking to the pan. Eggs set from the bottom up as proteins coagulate with heat. Stirring too much or lifting the edges too early breaks the forming structure and can leave it torn or stuck. Letting the base firm up first makes flipping clean.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes