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Poached Eggs with Croutons of Ham

Poached eggs served atop ham-filled bread croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Poached Eggs with Croutons of Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Make the ham filling

  1. Stir the chopped ham into the white or brown sauce.

  2. Season with cayenne pepper and lemon juice.

Prepare the croutons

  1. Cut thick rounds of bread and remove the centers.

  2. Brush the bread with butter and brown in the oven.

  3. Fill the open space with the ham mixture.

Assemble and serve

  1. Top each round with a neatly poached egg.

  2. Garnish with parsley or cress.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs (in the method)
Set to a soft, tender texture when poached, forming the rich topping.
White or brown sauce
Binds the chopped ham and adds a creamy, moist filling.
Bread
Forms a crisp, sturdy base that holds the filling and egg.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and a rich flavor on the bread.
Cooked ham
Provides savory, salty flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Poaching the eggs. Eggs must be added to gently simmering water, not boiling, so the whites set around the yolk. Rough water breaks up the whites and leaves a ragged shape, while the yolk should stay runny for a soft, tender result.

“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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