Name: Stuffed Ham
Ingredients: 1 ham; corn-meal muffins, hoe-cake, or grated biscuit (for dressing); 1 moderate sized onion, finely chopped; 1-2 leaves of sage; pepper to taste; sugar to taste; a few celery seeds

Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffed Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

Boil the ham and then remove the skin.

Make the dressing

Prepare a dressing using corn-meal muffins, hoe-cake, or grated biscuit.
Add the finely chopped onion, sage, pepper, sugar, and celery seeds to the dressing.

Stuff the ham

Make incisions all over the ham with a large knife.
Press the dressing into the incisions.

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.

Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Sage + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together723 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Corn + celerytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together920 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham: Forms the main body of the dish and carries the dressing filling.
Corn-meal muffins, hoe-cake, or grated biscuit: Forms the bread base of the dressing, giving it body and a soft crumb.
Onion: Adds moisture and savory flavor to the dressing as it softens.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, corn, sage, pepper, sugar, celery):

Capsicumfits better
Carrotfits better
Mustardfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, corn, sage, pepper, sugar, celery. 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.