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Deviled Ham

A cold ham mixture seasoned with mustard, sugar, cayenne, vinegar, and garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Deviled Ham

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Deviled Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Remove hard dark bits from the leftover ham, leaving some fat.

  2. Chop the ham very finely until it is almost a paste.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the mustard, sugar, and Cayenne pepper. Slowly add the vinegar to the mixture and stir well.

Pack and serve

  1. Combine the dressing with the minced ham and pack it into a mold. Keep the mold in a cool place until ready to serve.

  2. Turn the ham onto a platter, garnish with parsley, and serve.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover cold ham
Provides the meat base and fat that give the spread its body and flavor.
Ground mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the richness of the ham.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the mustard and vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and moistens the chopped ham.

The step that matters

Chopping the ham finely. Fine chopping breaks the meat into small pieces so it binds with the dressing into a smooth, spreadable texture rather than a loose, crumbly mix.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, mustard, sugar, pepper, 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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