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Ham Sandwiches

A sandwich made with stale bread, butter, ham, mustard, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Ham Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sandwiches

  1. Butter the slices of stale bread thinly.

  2. Cover half the slices with thin slices of ham.

  3. Spread a little mixed mustard over the ham.

  4. Place a slice of buttered bread on top of each.

  5. Press the sandwiches together firmly.

Cut and serve

  1. Cut them into neat, convenient pieces in your desired shape.

  2. Serve on a folded napkin and garnish with sprigs of parsley.

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

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

  2. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Stale bread
Provides the structure for the sandwich, and its dryness lets the butter soak in without turning soggy.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the bread, carrying flavour and helping the slices stay moist.
Ham
Supplies the savoury, salty filling that gives the sandwich its main flavour.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp, acidic heat that cuts through the richness of the butter and ham.

The step that matters

Press the sandwiches together firmly. Firm pressing compresses the layers so the filling stays in place and the bread holds together when cut. Pressing too gently leaves gaps that let the filling slide out.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Celeryfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

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