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Ham Cakes

A savory dish of minced ham mixed with bread, mustard, pepper, eggs, and Worcestershire sauce, shaped and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Ham Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine minced ham, bread, mustard, pepper, eggs, and Worcestershire sauce in a bowl.

  2. Use a fish cake mold to shape the mixture into portions.

  3. Flatten each portion to about ½ inch thick.

  4. Roll each piece in dry bread crumbs.

Cook

  1. Fry in deep fat until golden brown.

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

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Ham + mustardtop 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

Minced ham
Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them their meaty flavor.
Bread
Adds bulk and softness, helping the mixture hold together while it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the cakes keep their shape when shaped and fried.
Mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavor that cuts through the richness of the ham.

The step that matters

Fry in deep fat until golden brown. Frying in hot fat browns the crumb coating through the Maillard reaction, creating a crisp exterior. Frying too cool lets the cakes absorb grease and turn soggy, while frying too long can dry out the interior.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, bread, pepper, egg, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, bread, pepper, egg, sauce. 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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