Why it works: Ham and egg 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 ↓
Fried Ham
Ingredients
Directions
Fry the ham
Melt a little bacon fat or dripping in a frying pan.
Add the ham and fry gently until cooked, turning it six to eight times to prevent it from becoming hard.
Once the ham is done, lift it onto a hot dish.
Fry the eggs
Add a little more fat to the frying pan.
Break the eggs into a cup and slip them into the hot fat, frying gently until set.
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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Ham + eggtop 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
- Bacon fat or dripping
- Conducts heat in the pan and adds savoury flavour to the ham and eggs.
- Slices of ham
- Provides the main savoury flavour and meaty base of the dish.
- Eggs
- Set in the hot fat to form a firm, tender cooked white and yolk.
The step that matters
Turning the ham gently. Frequent gentle turning lets the ham cook through evenly without overheating one side. Fast or heavy frying dries and toughens the meat, so it becomes hard.
“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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