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Preserve

Potted Ham

A paste made by boiling ham, seasoning with cayenne pepper and salt, then packing into small pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Potted Ham

Why it works: Ham and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,058 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Potted Ham

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the ham and mince it into a smooth paste, ensuring the fat and lean meat are well combined, with one-third fat.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper for each pound of meat and salt to taste.

  3. Heat the mixture thoroughly and pack it firmly into small pots.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the main meat, fat and lean, that forms the paste's body and flavor.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat and a sharp, spicy aroma that cuts the richness of the meat.

“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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