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Ham Sandwiches

A sandwich made by mixing minced ham, mustard, eggs, flour, butter, cucumber pickles, and vinegar, then spreading between bread slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ham Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Combine minced ham, mustard, eggs, flour, butter, and chopped cucumber pickles in a bowl.

  2. Beat the mixture thoroughly.

  3. Pour the mixture into boiling vinegar, but do not let it boil.

Assemble

  1. Once cooled, spread the mixture between slices of bread to make sandwiches.

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. Mustard + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Bind the filling and set it into a thick, spreadable mixture when heated.
Flour
Thickens the mixture so it holds together rather than running out of the sandwich.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling.
Mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavor that balances the richness of the ham and eggs.
Minced ham
Provides the main meaty flavor and body of the filling.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into boiling vinegar without letting it boil. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the mixture must be cooked gently to thicken smoothly. If it boils hard, the eggs can curdle and turn grainy.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, mustard, egg, flour, butter, vinegar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, mustard, egg, flour, butter, vinegar. 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.

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