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Ham Puff

A baked custard-like dish with ham, eggs, milk, butter, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Ham Puff

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Add the butter and melt it.

  3. Mix in the flour with a little cold milk to create a smooth thickening.

  4. Stir until the mixture is smooth and thick.

  5. Remove from heat and let it cool.

  6. Add the beaten egg yolks.

Assemble and bake

  1. Gently fold in the stiff egg whites, salt, and chopped ham.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish suitable for serving.

  3. Bake for 45 minutes in a water bath.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites trapped as foam lift the mixture, while yolks enrich and help set the custard.
Flour
Starch thickens the scalded milk into a smooth base that holds the puff together.
Butter
Fat melted into the base adds richness and a tender mouthfeel.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens and the eggs set into custard.
Chopped cooked ham
Adds savoury flavour and substance to the puff.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiff egg whites. Whites must be folded gently so the air bubbles they hold are not deflated. Those bubbles are what lift the puff in the oven, so overmixing leaves a dense result.

“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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