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Ham with Eggs

A quick fried ham and egg scramble with butter and milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Ham with Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the ham into thin shavings.

Cook

  1. Fry the ham in ½ tablespoon of butter until brown.

  2. Beat the eggs with ½ cup of milk or cream until light.

  3. Add the egg mixture to the ham, stirring constantly until the eggs are set.

  4. 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

  3. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides savory flavor and browns in the butter, adding aroma to the dish.
Eggs
Set on heating to form the soft, tender body of the dish.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the beaten eggs softer as they set.
Butter
Fat for frying the ham, promoting browning and adding flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs as they set. Eggs turn from liquid to solid as their proteins coagulate with heat. Constant stirring over moderate heat breaks up curds into a soft texture; if left still, the bottom overcooks and turns rubbery while the top stays runny.

“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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