Why it works: Egg and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,526 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Ham, Fried, and Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the ham
Cut the ham into even slices and remove the rind.
If the ham is hard and salty, soak it in hot water for 10 minutes.
Dry the ham with a cloth.
Cook the ham and eggs
Place the ham slices in a cold frying pan.
Heat over the fire, turning them 3 or 4 times while cooking.
Keep the cooked ham warm in front of the fire while poaching the eggs.
Poach the eggs and slip them onto the slices of ham.
Serve immediately.
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.
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Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,526 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Set when poached, forming the soft, cohesive topping for the ham slices.
- Ham
- Provides the salty, savoury base that the eggs are served on.
The step that matters
Soaking the hard, salty ham. Soaking draws out some of the salt in cured ham so it does not taste overly salty next to the eggs. Drying the slices afterward helps them brown rather than steam in the pan.
“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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