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Ham Sandwiches

A sandwich made with chopped cold boiled ham, fat, tongue, chicken, and a butter, mustard, and egg yolk spread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ham Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cold boiled ham, fat, tongue, and chicken finely.

Make the spread

  1. In a bowl, mix the butter, salad oil, mustard, egg yolk, and salt until well combined.

  2. Spread the mixture smoothly over the chopped meat.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the mixture on thin slices of bread and serve.

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

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

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

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

  3. Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Ham + chickentop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, spreadable body to the filling.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies the butter and oil so the spread holds together smoothly.
Mustard
Adds sharp, acidic flavour that cuts the richness of the fat and meat.
Salad oil
Keeps the spread soft and moist by adding liquid fat.

The step that matters

Mixing the butter, oil, and egg yolk. Butter and oil must be fully combined with the egg yolk so the mixture forms a stable, smooth emulsion; if it separates or stays lumpy, the spread will look greasy and spread unevenly over the meat.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, chicken, butter, egg, 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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