Name: Ham Sandwiches
Ingredients: cold boiled ham; prepared mustard; black pepper; chopped celery or celery seed; melted butter; sweet cream; bread

Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Ham Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the cold boiled ham finely.
Season with prepared mustard and black pepper.
Add chopped celery or celery seed.
Mix in melted butter and sweet cream until smooth.
Spread the mixture between slices of 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.

Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

Swap the mustard

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

Mustardthe original
Carrotfits about as well
Leekfits about as well
Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pepper, celery, butter, cream, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.