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Ham Sandwiches

A creamy dressing made with egg, cayenne pepper, mustard, sugar, butter, vinegar, salt, milk, and chopped ham.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Ham Sandwiches

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the egg thoroughly in a bowl.

  2. Add cayenne pepper, mustard, and sugar to the egg and mix well.

  3. Melt the butter and add it along with the vinegar to the mixture.

  4. Stir everything together and place in a small double boiler.

  5. Cook until the mixture thickens, then cool it.

Finish and combine

  1. If the mixture is too thick, add a little milk until it reaches a cream-like consistency.

  2. Chop the ham finely and mix it with the dressing.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Thickens the dressing as it cooks and gives it a rich, smooth body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing a smoother mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the egg and butter.
Sugar
Adds a mild sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture thickens. Egg proteins set when heated, thickening the dressing. Overheating or cooking too fast can scramble the egg, leaving lumps, so heat gently in the double boiler and stir steadily.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, sugar, butter, vinegar, milk, ham):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, sugar, butter, vinegar, milk, ham. 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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