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Egg and Ham Patties

A savory patty of minced ham and brown sauce stuffed into fried bread, topped with a poached egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Egg and Ham Patties

4 or 5 bread shapes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Cut a slice of stale bread from the solid part of a loaf, about 2 inches thick.

  2. Use a round cutter, 2 inches in diameter, to cut out 4 or 5 pieces.

  3. Take a smaller cutter, press it through the larger pieces, and remove the inner bread with a knife.

  4. Heat a large pan of boiling lard and fry the bread shapes until light brown.

  5. Drain the fried bread on a clean cloth and set aside.

Make the filling

  1. In a pan, combine the minced ham and brown sauce, stirring over heat for a few minutes.

  2. Add cayenne pepper and lemon juice to the ham mixture.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill the bread shapes with the ham mixture and top each with a poached egg.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Stale bread
Provides a sturdy case that crisps when fried and holds the filling.
Lard
Frying fat that transfers heat quickly, browning the bread evenly and giving it a crisp crust.
Lean ham
Supplies the savoury, meaty base of the filling.
Brown sauce
Adds depth and moisture, binding the minced ham into a spreadable filling.
Cayenne pepper
Adds gentle heat that sharpens the flavour of the ham.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich ham and sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the bread shapes. If the lard is not hot enough, bread absorbs fat and turns greasy and pale rather than crisp. Hot fat seals the surface quickly, so the shapes brown evenly and hold their form while staying crisp inside the case.

“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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