Name: Ham and Eggs
Ingredients: thinly sliced ham; butter; salt; eggs

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 ↓

Ham and Eggs

Ingredients

thinly sliced ham
butter
salt
eggs

Directions

Broil the ham slices and spread a little butter over them.
Poach the eggs in salted water and place them neatly on top of the ham.
For frying, heat a little butter in a skillet before adding the ham.
Once cooked, pour off the clear fat and rinse the skillet with hot water, then pour this over the ham as gravy.
Fry the eggs in the ham gravy, ensuring to remove any sediment before adding the clear fat back to the skillet.
Break the eggs into a saucer, then pour them into the skillet and baste the tops with hot fat until cooked to your liking.

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.

Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,526 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).