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Ham Tortilla

A fried egg and ham mixture cooked in butter or oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ham Tortilla

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the ham and chop it.

  2. Heat the butter or oil in a pan.

  3. Beat the eggs and season with mustard and pepper.

Cook the tortilla

  1. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and stir briefly.

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

  3. When lightly browned, flip 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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

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

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

  5. 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

Eggs
Coagulate as they cook, setting into the firm body that holds the tortilla together.
Butter or oil
Fat keeps the egg from sticking to the pan and adds richness to the browned surface.
Ham
Provides savory flavor and chewy pieces distributed through the set eggs.

The step that matters

Let the tortilla set without sticking to the pan. Egg proteins coagulate as they heat, forming a firm base. Moving or flipping before the bottom sets tears the tortilla and leaves it stuck, so the edges and base should firm up first.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg, butter, pepper. 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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