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Fried Ham and Eggs

A dish of sliced ham fried with eggs, served with optional gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Fried Ham and Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Cut the ham into thin, even slices and remove the rind.

  2. If the ham is too salty, soak it in hot water for 15 minutes, then dry it with a cloth.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the ham in a frying pan over medium heat until browned and cooked through, then transfer to a hot platter.

  2. Crack the eggs into a saucer one at a time, then slip them into the ham drippings in the frying pan.

  3. Spoon the hot drippings over the eggs until a white film forms on top, then remove them from the pan.

  4. Place the eggs on the ham or serve them on a separate platter, sprinkling lightly with salt.

  5. For gravy, drain the drippings and add a little hot water to the frying pan, simmer for a minute, and pour over the meat.

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. Egg + buttertop 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

Thinly sliced ham
Provides the main savoury meat, browned in its own fat to develop flavour.
Eggs
Set in the hot drippings, where the white firms and the yolk stays soft.
Ham drippings
Fat left from frying the ham, which cooks the eggs and carries flavour.

The step that matters

Spooning the hot drippings over the eggs. Basting with hot fat sets the white's top layer into a film while the yolk stays runny. Too little heat or too little fat leaves the white unset, and too much cooking dries the yolk.

“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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