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Ham Sandwiches

A sandwich made with chopped cold boiled ham, fat, tongue, chicken, butter, mustard, egg yolk, salad oil, salt, and pickles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,192 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Ham Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the cold boiled ham, fat, tongue, and chicken finely.

  2. In a bowl, mix the chopped meats with butter, mustard, egg yolk, salad oil, and salt until smooth.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the mixture over thin slices of bread.

  2. Finely chop pickles and sprinkle them on top.

  3. Cut the sandwiches crosswise like jelly cake.

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. Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  2. Ham + chickentop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  4. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, 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

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, spreadable texture to the meat filling.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies the fat and binds the filling so it holds together when spread.
Mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavor that cuts through the richness of the meats and fat.
Salad oil
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and smooth.

The step that matters

Mixing the filling until smooth. The butter, egg yolk, and oil must be blended thoroughly with the finely chopped meats; if they stay separated, the filling will be greasy and crumbly rather than spreadable.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, chicken, butter, egg. 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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