Name: Stewed Ham with Spinach
Ingredients: ham (prepared and steamed); spinach; brown sauce

Why it works: Spinach and sauce work together. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 756 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Stewed Ham with Spinach

Oven, in the book's wordsA medium oven

Ingredients

ham (prepared and steamed)
spinach
brown sauce

Directions

Steam the ham as directed.
Remove the skin from the ham.
Slice the ham and serve it on a bed of spinach.
Add brown sauce on the sides.

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.

Spinach + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together756 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ham + saucetop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,314 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ham + spinachtop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together144 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).