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Hors D’@uvre—deviled Ham Appetizer

A deviled ham appetizer made with stale bread crumbs, soda crackers, celery, onion, and Underwood Deviled Ham.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Hors D’@uvre—deviled Ham Appetizer

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine stale bread crumbs, chopped celery, and a tiny bit of onion.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the Underwood Deviled Ham thinly over the soda crackers.

  2. Serve as an appetizer.

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. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  3. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Bread + celerytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,110 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Ham + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread crumbs
Add bulk and body to the mixture, absorbing moisture and giving a soft texture.
English soda crackers
Act as the crisp base that holds the spread and gives a crunchy bite.
Chopped celery
Adds a fresh, crisp crunch and mild vegetal flavour to the mixture.
Underwood deviled ham
Provides the main savoury, meaty flavour and rich spreadable texture.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, ham, onion. 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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