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Frizzled Ham and Eggs
Take bits of either boiled or fried ham, chop fine, and place in skillet prepared with butter or beef drippings; take four to six wellbeaten eggs, pour over ham, and when heated through, season well with pepper and salt; stir together, cook until done brown, and turn over without stirring.
A scrap dish for leftover ham, essentially a flat omelet or heavy scramble. The original leaves the pan size and heat to judgment, so a few numbers help.
- Pan and fatA "skillet prepared with butter or beef drippings" suggests a heavy 8- to 10-inch pan filmed with about a tablespoon of fat over medium heat. The recipe does not specify the pan; cast iron suits the dish.
- The hamChopped cooked ham, roughly 3/4 cup for six eggs. Nineteenth-century ham was generally saltier than modern supermarket ham; the recipe seasons only after the eggs go in, so taste before adding salt.
- Heat the ham firstThe ham goes into the fat before the eggs, though the recipe does not say how long; warming it until it sizzles and picks up some brown edges fits the name, since "frizzled" refers to that crisping.
- "Cook until done brown"This is a firm, browned-bottom egg cake, not a soft scramble. Modern taste generally stops sooner; pull it when the top is just set if you prefer creamy eggs, and expect the underside to color quickly at medium heat.
- "Turn over without stirring"Once the eggs have set enough to hold together, slide a wide spatula under the whole round and flip it to brown the second side, half a minute or so. If flipping in one piece looks unlikely, cut it in quarters and turn each.
- YieldFour to six eggs feeds two to three as a main dish with bread, or four at a larger breakfast.
This is a thrift recipe, and the tell is the opening words: bits of ham already boiled or fried, saved from an earlier meal. Community compilations like The Dixie Cook Book (published in the 1880s, aimed at Southern households) carried such entries, since a boiled or baked ham was a week-long resource in a kitchen without refrigeration and the trimmings around the bone had to go somewhere. "Frizzled" was a common nineteenth-century American cooking verb for frying thin slices of meat until the edges curled and crisped -- it appears most often in the period alongside dried beef -- and beef drippings are listed on equal footing with butter, which at least tells us that rendered fat was an accepted alternative to butter in such a dish.