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Ham and Eggs Fried

A dish of fried ham slices served with eggs, spinach, gravy, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and spinach are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,400 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Ham and Eggs Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Boil the slices of ham briefly.

  2. Heat lard in a frying pan.

  3. Dip the ham slices in wheat flour or rolled crackers.

  4. Place the floured ham slices in the hot lard.

  5. Sprinkle the ham slices with pepper.

  6. Cook the ham slices until both sides are browned.

  7. Remove the ham slices.

  8. Keep the ham slices warm with gravy.

Fry the eggs

  1. Add more lard to the pan.

  2. Heat the lard.

  3. Carefully slip the eggs into the hot lard, avoiding breaking the yolks.

  4. Cook the eggs slowly.

  5. Separate each egg with a knife.

  6. Arrange the cooked eggs around the ham on a serving dish.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil the spinach.

  2. Chop the boiled spinach.

  3. Place the chopped spinach in the center of the dish.

  4. Pour gravy over the ham.

  5. Serve with vinegar on the 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. Pepper + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Wheat + spinachtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Wheat + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together984 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Ham + eggtop 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

Slices of ham
Browned in lard to give a savory, crisp-edged surface.
Wheat flour or rolled crackers
Coating that browns in the fat and gives the ham a crisp crust.
Lard
Frying fat that conducts heat and browns the ham and eggs.
Eggs
Set in hot fat to form the fried egg whites and yolks served alongside the ham.

The step that matters

Cook the eggs slowly. Gentle heat sets the egg whites without toughening or scorching them, and keeps the yolks intact and runny. High heat makes the edges hard and browned before the centre sets.

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, wheat, pepper, egg, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, wheat, pepper, egg, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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