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Ham Sauce

A savory sauce made from boiled ham, bacon, vegetables, herbs, and a clarified gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Ham Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Remove all meat from the ham, discarding any rusty or decayed parts.

  2. Beat the meat with a rolling pin until broken into small pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, place the bacon, carrot, and onion, then add the meat and water.

  2. Cook over low heat for about 10 minutes, stirring until it sticks to the bottom.

  3. Dredge in a little flour and continue stirring until it sticks more.

  4. Add the saved gravy and pour in the gravy or water with catsup.

  5. Add the herbs and peppercorns, cover, and simmer gently for 40 minutes.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the gravy through a fine sieve and skim off the fat.

  2. Clarify with the egg white, bring to a boil, and strain again.

  3. Let it cool and bottle for later use.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Marjoram + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  4. Lemon + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled ham
Provides the main meat flavour and body of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the fat and liquid.
Egg white
Collects fine particles as it sets, clarifying the sauce to a clear result.
Fat bacon
Adds savoury fat and flavour to the base vegetables and meat.

The step that matters

Clarifying with the egg white. Egg white proteins coagulate when heated and trap suspended particles, so the sauce must be brought to a boil and then strained again. Stirring or boiling too early can leave the sauce cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, carrot, flour, lemon, thyme, marjoram, basil):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, carrot, flour, lemon, thyme, marjoram, basil. 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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