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Ham Patties

Ham patties made with chopped boiled ham, crumbed bread, butter, milk, eggs, and seasonings, baked until eggs set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ham Patties

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop the lean boiled ham finely.

  2. Mix the ham with an equal amount of crumbed bread and season with pepper.

  3. Add 2 tablespoons of butter or chopped fat.

  4. Moisten the mixture with milk to form a soft paste.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill muffin tins with the mixture.

  2. Break an egg on top of each patty and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and cracker or bread crumbs.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 minutes, or until the eggs are cooked.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 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

Lean boiled ham
Provides the main meaty flavour and body of the patty.
Crumbed bread
Absorbs moisture and binds the ham so the patty holds together.
Butter or fat
Adds richness and a softer texture to the patty.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs into a soft paste that stays tender when baked.
Eggs
Set on top of each patty during baking, giving a firm, cooked topping.

The step that matters

Baking until the eggs are cooked. The egg sets as the proteins coagulate in the oven's heat. Pulling the patties too early leaves the white runny, while overbaking can make the egg rubbery and dry the patty beneath.

“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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