Skip to main content
Main

Potatoes and Ham

A baked dish of sliced potatoes and minced ham layered with sauce and buttered crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ham and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,526 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Potatoes and Ham

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Mince the cold boiled ham.

  2. Slice the potatoes very thin.

  3. Season the ham and potatoes to taste.

Assemble and bake

  1. Arrange the ham and potatoes in alternate layers.

  2. Pour 1 pint of thin white sauce mixed with 2 beaten eggs over the layers.

  3. Cover with buttered crumbs.

  4. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until browned.

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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Ham + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Ham + potatotop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together127 recipes

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

  4. Potato + saucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the layers and become tender as they cook through.
Eggs
Set into the white sauce as it bakes, helping the layers hold together.
Cold boiled ham
Supplies the savory meat flavor that runs through the layers.
Thin white sauce
Keeps the layers moist and binds them as the dish bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until browned. The egg and white sauce mixture must set fully into a custard while the crumb topping browns. Underbaking leaves the centre loose and wet, while overbaking can dry out the potatoes.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sauce, 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes