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Stuffed Ham Roll

A ham slice rolled around a breadcrumb mixture, baked and served with a corn starch sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,668 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Ham Roll

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Fry onions and cloves in Mazola, then remove cloves.

  2. Add bread crumbs and fry for one minute.

  3. Add celery and spread the mixture on the slice of ham.

  4. If the mixture is too thick, add 1 tablespoon of water.

Roll and bake

  1. Roll the ham and tie it into shape.

  2. Sprinkle with brown sugar and stick with cloves.

  3. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) for 30 minutes, basting often.

Serve

  1. Serve on a platter with a sauce made by stirring corn starch into cold water, then diluting with hot water to taste.

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. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  2. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Celery + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together920 recipes

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

  5. Corn + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together712 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Forms the outer wrap that holds the filling and becomes the savoury centrepiece.
Bread crumbs
Bulk the filling and absorb fat and juices so the mixture holds together.
Mazola
Fries the onions and bread crumbs, carrying flavour and helping them brown.
Benson's corn starch
Thickens the serving sauce once stirred into water and heated.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the savoury, sweet glaze flavours.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the surface and caramelises in the oven for browning.

The step that matters

Stirring corn starch into the sauce. Corn starch must be fully mixed into cold water before adding hot water; added directly to hot liquid it clumps and thickens unevenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, celery, corn, bread, vinegar, sugar, clove):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, celery, corn, bread, vinegar, sugar, clove. 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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