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Ham Cakes

Ham cakes are fried patties made from mashed potatoes, bread crumbs, chopped ham, eggs, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and ham 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 Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cakes

  1. Mix the mashed potatoes, bread crumbs, chopped ham, eggs, salt, and pepper thoroughly.

  2. Shape the mixture into cakes.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each cake in beaten egg, then roll in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the cakes in deep fat until brown.

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. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Bind the mixture and give the cakes a soft, moist interior.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and form a crisp, browned outer coating when fried.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help the coating adhere to the cakes.
Chopped ham
Adds savory, salty flavor throughout the cakes.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes in deep fat until brown. Frying at a steady, hot temperature crisps the coating quickly, so the outside browns before the interior absorbs excess oil. Oil that is too cool makes the cakes greasy and can cause the coating to fall off.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Potatothe original

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