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Ham Patties

Ham patties made from chopped boiled ham, bread crumbs, spices, and egg, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ham Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the patties

  1. Chop the cold boiled ham into small pieces.

  2. Combine the ham with the bread crumbs in a bowl.

  3. Season the mixture with pepper, coarse sea salt, and sage.

  4. Moisten the mixture with cold gravy or melted butter and the beaten egg.

  5. Form the mixture into flat cakes.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cakes in hot butter or a mixture of butter and lard 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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

  5. Bread + sagetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 meaty flavor and body of the patties.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the moisture and give the patties a binding base that holds their shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so the patties hold their shape while frying.
Gravy or butter
Moistens the crumbs and adds fat and flavor, keeping the patties tender.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes in hot fat. The fat must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the patties absorb grease and turn soggy before a golden crust forms, and they may break apart.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

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