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Chicken and Ham Sandwiches

A sandwich made with shredded chicken, chopped ham, and a seasoned paste spread between buttered bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken and Ham Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the chicken and ham.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, mustard, and tomato ketchup.

  3. Add stock gradually until the mixture forms a paste.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture between slices of buttered bread.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk of the filling.
Cooked ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a firmer bite to the filling.
Stock
Moistens the filling so the chicken and ham bind into a spreadable paste.

The step that matters

Add stock gradually until the mixture forms a paste. Adding stock slowly lets the shredded meat absorb moisture evenly. Too much liquid at once makes the filling runny and soggy, so the bread turns wet.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, pepper, tomato, ketchup, butter, bread. 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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