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Ham Sandwiches

A sandwich made with finely chopped cold boiled ham and beef tongues mixed with mustard, sugar, pepper, and eggs, spread between buttered bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Ham Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the cold boiled ham and beef tongues very fine.

  2. Add dry mustard, white sugar, and pepper to the meat mixture.

  3. Stir in the well-beaten eggs to moisten the mixture.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture between thin slices of buttered bread.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled ham
Provides the main meaty body and savory flavor of the filling.
Beef tongues
Adds rich, meaty texture to the chopped filling.
Eggs
Bind the chopped meat and moisten the mixture so it spreads evenly.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the richness of the meat.
White sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that offsets the salty ham.

The step that matters

Stir in the well-beaten eggs to moisten the mixture. Eggs must be fully blended so they bind the finely chopped meat evenly. Unevenly mixed egg leaves dry pockets in some bites and wet clumps in others, affecting how the filling holds together between the bread.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, beef, sugar, pepper, egg, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, beef, sugar, pepper, egg, 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.

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