Name: Potted Ham
Ingredients: Tender, well-roasted ham, free of fat, skin, and gristle; Cold fresh butter (amount varies based on meat type); Mace; Nutmeg; Cayenne or white pepper; Cloves (optional)

Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Ham

Ingredients

Tender, well-roasted ham, free of fat, skin, and gristle
Cold fresh butter (amount varies based on meat type)
Mace
Nutmeg
Cayenne or white pepper
Cloves (optional)

Directions

Remove any fat, skin, and gristle from the ham.
Pound the ham in a mortar until it becomes a smooth paste, free from lumps.
If the ham is not very dry, pound it before adding butter.
Gradually mix in the cold fresh butter until well blended.
Add spices to taste, adjusting based on the type of meat used.
Store the mixture in a cool place immediately after preparation.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,695 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,375 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, meat, mace, nutmeg, white pepper):

Clovethe original
Allspicefits about as well
Cinnamonfits about as well
Winter savoryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, meat, mace, nutmeg, white pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.