Skip to main content
Main

Hot Ham or Chicken Sandwiches

A hot sandwich made with buttered bread, ham or chicken, mustard, cream, and egg, then fried in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Hot Ham or Chicken Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Spread buttered bread with chopped ham or chicken.

  2. If using ham, mix it with a little mustard and moisten with cream if necessary.

  3. For chicken, mix with pepper, salt, and a little cream or chicken gravy.

Cook and serve

  1. Dip each sandwich into a slightly beaten egg diluted with milk.

  2. Sauté in butter, browning both sides.

  3. Serve with pickles or olives.

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

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Mustard + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Buttered bread
Forms the sandwich and crisps and browns in the butter.
Egg
Coats the sandwich so it sets and binds when cooked.
Milk
Thins the beaten egg so the coating spreads thinly and evenly.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the ham or chicken filling.
Butter
Browns the outside of the sandwich and adds rich flavour.

The step that matters

Sauté in butter, browning both sides. Medium heat lets the egg coating set and brown evenly before the bread burns. Too little butter or heat can leave the coating pale and soggy, while too much heat can scorch the outside before the filling warms through.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, ham, cream, chicken, pepper, egg, milk. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes