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Ham Salad

Ham salad made with boiled ham, potatoes, eggs, vinegar, butter, mustard, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,340 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ham Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. Chop the cold boiled ham and cold boiled potatoes finely.

  2. Chop the whites of three hard boiled eggs and add to the ham and potatoes.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, heat the vinegar and butter until warm.

  2. In a bowl, mash the yolks of three hard boiled eggs with the mustard to a smooth paste.

  3. Add the egg yolk mixture to the vinegar and let it boil.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the salad and garnish with the hard boiled egg whites.

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. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

  5. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and absorb the warm dressing for body.
Cold boiled ham
Adds savory meaty flavor and chewy texture to the salad.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Mashed with mustard, they thicken the dressing and add richness.
Vinegar
Provides sharp acidity that balances the rich yolks and butter.

The step that matters

Letting the yolk mixture boil in the vinegar. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the mixture boils too hard or too long it can curdle or turn grainy. Whisking the smooth paste into the warm vinegar keeps the dressing silky.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, egg, vinegar, butter, mustard):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg, vinegar, butter, mustard. 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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