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Ham Sandwiches

A sandwich made with thinly sliced cold boiled ham, French mustard, buttered bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cold boiled ham very thin.

  2. Spread a little French mustard on the ham.

Assemble

  1. Place a slice of ham between two thin slices of buttered bread.

  2. Alternatively, lay the ham on a very thin slice of buttered bread and roll it up carefully to avoid breaking the crust.

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

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

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

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

  4. Mustard + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

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

  5. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled ham
Provides the savoury filling that forms the main body of the sandwich.
French mustard
Adds sharp, acidic bite that contrasts with the rich, salty ham.
Bread
Forms the structure that holds the filling and can be rolled without breaking when thin.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creates a moisture barrier between the bread and the filling.

The step that matters

Roll the bread carefully. Thin bread is fragile and cracks easily when rolled around the ham. Cracks let the filling escape and dry out the exposed crumb, so gentle rolling keeps the sandwich intact.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Onionfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, bread, butter. 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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