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Poached Eggs with Ham and Vegetables

Poached eggs served on fried bread topped with ham stewed in Madeira wine and garnished with asparagus, peas, or truffle sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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. Fry the slice of bread in boiling lard until golden, then drain it dry.

  2. Place the fried bread in a dish.

  3. Stew the slices of ham in Madeira wine until tender, then layer them on top of the bread.

Finish and serve

  1. Poach the eggs and lay them on the ham.

  2. Garnish the dish with asparagus, peas, or truffle sauce around the bread.

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
Set when poached, forming the soft, rich top layer of the dish.
Ham
Stewing makes it tender and adds savory, meaty flavor to the dish.
Madeira wine
Stewing the ham in it adds sweetness and aroma as the liquid reduces.
Bread
Frying in lard gives a golden, crisp base that holds the ham and eggs.

The step that matters

Poaching the eggs. Eggs need gently simmering, not boiling, water so the whites set around the yolk while the yolk stays soft. Vigorous boiling tears the whites apart.

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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