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Ham and Pickle Sandwiches

A sandwich made with cold boiled ham, melted butter, mustard, cucumber pickles, and buttered bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ham and Pickle Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the cold boiled ham finely.

  2. Mix the ham with a little melted butter and made mustard.

  3. Add finely-chopped cucumber pickles.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture between thin slices of buttered bread.

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. Mustard + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Mustard + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 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

Cold boiled ham
Forms the savoury bulk of the filling and gives it its meaty body.
Melted butter
Adds fat and moisture, helping the ham mix into a spreadable filling.
Made mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the ham and butter.
Cucumber pickles
Add acidity and crunch that brighten the filling.
Thin slices of bread
Hold the filling in place and give the sandwich its structure.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

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