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Frizzled Ham

A dish of thinly shaved ham cooked with flour, mustard, vinegar, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Frizzled Ham

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat a frying pan until smoking hot.

  2. Add the shaved ham and stir for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Dust the ham with dry flour and stir until the flour is brown.

  4. Mix the dry mustard and vinegar in a bowl, then add the mixture once the flour is brown.

  5. Pour in enough boiling water to cover the ham.

  6. Let it boil gently for a moment, then serve for breakfast or supper.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

  4. Ham + vinegartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  5. Flour + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,652 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the meat and savory flavor that the dish is built around.
Flour
Browns in the pan and thickens the liquid into a light gravy.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that cuts the richness of the ham.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the fat and sharpens the mustard's bite.

The step that matters

Stir the flour until it is brown. Flour must toast in the hot fat to develop nutty, roasted flavor and color. Adding the liquid too early leaves a pale, raw-tasting gravy, while flour left too long can scorch and turn bitter.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Cucumberfits less well
  4. Okrafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, flour, 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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