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Poached Eggs with Ham and Vegetables

Poached eggs served atop ham stewed in Madeira wine, garnished with asparagus, peas, or truffle sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Poached Eggs with Ham and Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the crust from the bread and dry it in a pan.

  2. Place the dried bread in a dish.

Cook and serve

  1. Stew the ham in Madeira wine until tender.

  2. Poach the eggs and place them on top of the ham.

  3. Garnish the dish with asparagus, peas, or truffle 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 + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  2. Bread + asparagustop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together363 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  5. Egg + asparagustop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,338 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
Poached eggs form the topping, setting into a soft, creamy centre when cooked.
Ham
Stewing in Madeira wine makes the ham tender and adds savoury flavour.
Madeira wine
Stewing with the ham adds sweetness and a rich, aromatic depth to the dish.
Bread
Dried bread provides a crisp, absorbent base for the ham and eggs.

The step that matters

Poach the eggs. Eggs cook gently in barely simmering water, and overcooking makes the whites rubbery and the yolks chalky. Timing them just before serving keeps the yolks runny.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, ham, madeira wine, egg):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Asparagusthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, ham, madeira wine, egg. 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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