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Ham Baked with Eggs

Eggs baked in gem pans lined with a paste of ham, bread crumbs, milk, and melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ham Baked with Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the ham, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, melted butter, and enough milk to form a soft paste.

  2. Line gem pans with the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Break an egg into each pan and season.

  2. Cover with finely powdered crackers or more of the paste if desired.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 10 minutes or until the eggs are set.

  4. Serve with tomato sauce.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  5. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 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

Eggs
Set to form the soft centre of each cup as they bake.
Bread crumbs
Bind with milk and butter to form a soft paste that holds the ham shell together.
Ham
Adds savoury flavour and substance to the paste base.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs so the paste is soft and spreadable.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the paste brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until the eggs are just set. Egg whites set at moderate heat while yolks stay soft if removed in time. Overbaking turns the yolks firm and dry, and it can make the eggs rubbery.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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