Name: Baked Ham
Ingredients: 1 ham; 1 beaten egg; bread crumbs; cream

Why it works: Ham and bread 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 ↓

Baked Ham

Ingredients

1 ham
1 beaten egg
bread crumbs
cream

Directions

Prepare

Boil the ham and remove the skin.

Coat and bake

Cover the ham with the beaten egg.
Sprinkle bread crumbs over the ham.
Moisten with cream and bake.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,526 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ham + creamtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,370 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ham: Forms the main body of the dish and carries the flavour of the coating.
Beaten egg: Binds the bread crumbs so they stick to the ham's surface.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, golden crust when baked.
Cream: Adds moisture so the coating does not dry out in the oven.

“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.