Name: Ham Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 cup lean ham, finely chopped; 2 tablespoons salad oil; 1 teaspoon vinegar; ¼ teaspoon French mustard; 6 olives, finely chopped; 1 teaspoon minced parsley; thin slices of white bread

Why it works: Olive and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,649 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Ham Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

In a bowl, combine the chopped ham, salad oil, vinegar, French mustard, chopped olives, and minced parsley.
Mix until it forms a paste.

Assemble and serve

Spread the mixture on thin slices of white bread.
Serve immediately.

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.

Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,649 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,950 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,588 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean ham: Provides the savory meat base that the filling is built around.
Salad oil: Adds fat and moisture so the chopped ingredients bind into a spreadable paste.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and cuts the richness of the oil.
Olives: Contribute briny, salty flavor and texture to the filling.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, vinegar, mustard, olive, bread):

Capersfits better
Tarragonfits better
Garlicfits better
Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, vinegar, mustard, olive, bread. 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.