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Fried Ham and Eggs
Broil six very thin slices ham for two minutes on each side and dress on a hot dish. Lightly butter a small black frying pan, thoroughly heat on range, crack in two fresh eggs, season with a light saltspoon salt and half saltspoon pepper. Fry for three minutes, carefully glide eggs over a slice of the ham, prepare five more portions in a similar way and serve.
A hotel-kitchen formula written for six covers rather than one, which explains the pan-by-pan repetition. The measurements are period shorthand and the ham is not quite the ham you will buy today.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is usually reckoned at about a quarter teaspoon. So each two-egg batch takes roughly 1/4 tsp salt (the recipe says a "light" one) and 1/8 tsp pepper — generous but not wrong for two eggs plus a slice of ham beneath them.
- The black frying panMost likely cast iron or heavy black steel; such pans were commonly reserved for eggs and wiped rather than scoured. The point is retained heat and a slick surface; a well-seasoned skillet or a nonstick pan does the same job.
- Broiling the ham"Broil" here means over or under direct fierce heat, and two minutes a side suits slices no thicker than about 1/8 inch. Modern wet-cured supermarket ham holds far more water and will weep and steam rather than colour — pat it dry and use a hot dry skillet if the broiler gives you grey slices.
- Ham to buyA dry-cured country ham or a good bone-in cooked ham sliced thin is closest to the original. Country ham is cured rather than cooked, but thin slices need only brief frying; both are salty, so the job is browning, not long cooking.
- Three minutes for the eggsThree minutes in a properly heated pan gives set whites and a liquid yolk. If soft yolks are a concern for anyone at the table, cook until the yolk is firm rather than adding time blindly, which only toughens the white.
- Working in batchesTwo eggs at a time keeps the whites from spreading into each other and lets the pan recover heat. If you want to hold finished plates while the remaining pairs are fried, a low oven will do it.
- YieldSix portions, one ham slice and two eggs each.
Ham and eggs is too old and too obvious to have an inventor. The instruction to fry two eggs at a time in a small dedicated pan, then repeat, reads as professional line procedure rather than home advice. The "small black frying pan" is worth noticing too: iron omelette and egg pans wiped rather than washed with soap, so that the surface stayed slick, are a long-standing kitchen tradition — the working ancestor of the seasoned skillet still recommended today.