Name: To Stuff a Ham
Ingredients: 1 well smoked ham; parsley, chopped small; pepper

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Stuff a Ham

Ingredients

1 well smoked ham
parsley, chopped small
pepper

Directions

Prepare

Wash the ham very clean.
Make incisions all over the top, two inches deep.
Stuff the incisions full with chopped parsley and pepper.

Cook and serve

Boil the ham until cooked through, without removing the skin.
Serve cold.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,058 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ham + parsleytop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,249 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Smoked ham: Provides the main meat, with its smoky, salty flavour carrying the dish.
Parsley: Adds fresh, green aroma and flavour to the stuffed incisions.