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Ham and Eggs

A simple dish of beaten eggs cooked with butter and chopped ham.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 and Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the remains of fried or boiled ham very finely.

  2. Beat the eggs and add 1 tablespoon of milk to each egg.

Cook

  1. Melt the butter in the top of a double boiler.

  2. Add the eggs and milk to the melted butter.

  3. Cook until it begins to thicken, then add the chopped ham.

  4. Continue cooking until thick and creamy.

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

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

  2. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

  3. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 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

Eggs
Set into a thick, creamy custard as they cook, forming the body of the dish.
Milk
Dilutes the eggs so they cook into a softer, smoother texture rather than a firm scramble.
Butter
Provides fat that coats the eggs and keeps them from sticking and drying during gentle cooking.
Ham
Adds savory flavor and salty richness to the creamy eggs.

The step that matters

Cook gently in the double boiler. Eggs thicken from proteins that set at moderate heat. Too much heat makes them curdle and turn grainy, so the water bath must stay below a hard boil and the eggs must be stirred constantly until thick and creamy.

“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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