Name: Decorated Ham
Ingredients: 1 cooked ham; white lard; red or white jelly; laurel leaves; lemon slices; colored decorative items (white, red, golden, green, pink, blue)

Why it works: Laurel and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,239 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Decorated Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Choose a fresh, smoked ham with a soft skin.
Cook the ham and let it cool, then trim it nicely around the edges.
Uncover the bone and fasten a paper cuff around it.
Cut small squares into the skin at the front end, spaced evenly.
Fill the squares with white lard using a knife.
Create a star or statue shape from red or white jelly.
Chop additional jelly to resemble diamonds and place it along the edge of the star.
Make a border of laurel and lemon around the star.
Use lard to create decorative designs on the smooth parts of the skin.

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.

Laurel + lemontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,239 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Ham + laureltop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together609 recipes

Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
Ham + lemontop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,788 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).