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Sauce for Grated Ham

A sauce made by boiling vinegar, mixing with beaten egg yolks and mustard, then cooling and combining with grated ham.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sauce for Grated Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the vinegar in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks.

  3. Stir the beaten egg yolks into the boiling vinegar.

  4. Add mustard to taste.

Combine with ham

  1. Allow the mixture to cool, then mix it into the grated ham.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

  3. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + hamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  5. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as their proteins set with heat, giving it body and richness.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the rich yolks.
Mustard
Adds pungent aroma and sharp flavour that cuts through the richness of the ham.

The step that matters

Stirring the beaten yolks into the boiling vinegar. Egg proteins set when heated, so adding yolks to very hot liquid can scramble them into lumps. Stirring steadily while pouring in the yolks disperses them evenly and keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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