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Ham Sandwiches

A sandwich made with chopped boiled ham, tongue, chicken, and a butter-mustard spread on thin bread slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Ham Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the cold boiled ham, fat, tongue, and chicken finely.

  2. In a bowl, mix the butter, salad oil, mustard, egg yolk, and salt until well combined.

  3. Spread the mixture smoothly over the chopped meat.

  4. Serve on thin slices of 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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Ham + chickentop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the spread a smooth, creamy texture.
Egg yolk
Helps emulsify the fat and liquids, so the spread holds together smoothly.
Mustard
Adds sharpness that cuts through the richness of the meat and fat.
Salad oil
Adds moisture and keeps the spread soft and easy to spread.

The step that matters

Mix the butter, oil, mustard, and egg yolk until well combined. Butter is solid when cold, and the egg yolk must be fully blended with the fats to form a stable, smooth emulsion. If it stays lumpy or separates, the spread will be uneven and greasy rather than creamy.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, chicken, butter, egg, 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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