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Barbecued Ham

A ham dish with a sauce of butter, tomato catsup, French mustard, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,482 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Barbecued Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a chafing dish, stir together the butter, tomato catsup, French mustard, and sherry to make a sauce.

  2. Heat the sauce until hot.

Heat the ham

  1. Add thin slices of boiled ham and heat them well before serving.

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 + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 recipes

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

  2. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Sherry + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Mustard + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together492 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy body to the sauce.
Tomato catsup
Provides sweetness, acidity, and the main body of the barbecue sauce.
French mustard
Adds sharp tang that balances the sweetness of the catsup.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the sauce.
Boiled ham
Is the main protein, gently warmed and coated in the sauce.

The step that matters

Heat the ham thoroughly in the sauce. The ham is already cooked, so the goal is only to warm it through. Heating the sauce fully first lets the slices absorb flavor evenly and become hot all the way through before serving.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, mustard, sherry, ham. 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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