Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Hot Ham Mince
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Mix the minced ham, parsley, mustard, cream, and a little salt in a bowl.
Spread the mixture on buttered bread.
Cook
Dip the prepared bread in a mixture of beaten egg and milk.
Fry the bread in butter until golden brown.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,588 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together747 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together28,563 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg
- Binds with milk to coat the bread, setting into a golden custard crust when fried.
- Milk
- Thins the beaten egg so it soaks into the bread and cooks into a tender coating.
- Minced ham
- Provides the savory, salty filling that flavors the sandwich.
- Butter
- Fat for frying that promotes browning and adds rich flavor to the crust.
- Mustard
- Adds sharp, tangy flavor that balances the richness of the ham and egg.
The step that matters
Fry the bread in butter until golden brown. Frying over moderate heat lets the egg coating set and brown before the filling heats through. Too high a heat scorches the crust while the egg inside stays raw.
Swap the mustard
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, milk, egg, cream, parsley, butter):
- Potatofits better
- Leekfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Mustardthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against ham, milk, egg, cream, parsley, butter. 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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