Name: Ham Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 cup boiled ham; ½ cup chopped celery; 1 tablespoon chopped pickles; salad dressing

Why it works: Ham and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,608 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓

Ham Sandwiches

Ingredients

1 cup boiled ham
½ cup chopped celery
1 tablespoon chopped pickles
salad dressing

Directions

Prepare the filling

Mince the boiled ham well.
For every cup of ham, use a heaping tablespoon of chopped pickles and ½ cup of chopped celery.
Mix with salad dressing to form a paste.

Assemble

Spread the mixture between 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.

Ham + celerytop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,608 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled ham: Provides the savory meat base that gives the filling its bulk and flavor.
Chopped celery: Adds a crisp, fresh crunch that contrasts with the soft paste.
Chopped pickles: Adds acidity and tang that brightens the rich ham and dressing.
Salad dressing: Binds the chopped ingredients into a spreadable paste and adds moisture and fat.

“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.