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Indian Ham Sandwiches

A sandwich made with chopped ham, butter, Indian chutney, chervil, and Tabasco or cayenne pepper on thin unbuttered bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Indian Ham Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Combine chopped ham, butter, and a dash of Tabasco or cayenne in a bowl, then mix well.

  2. Add Indian chutney and chopped chervil, and stir until thoroughly combined.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture on slices of thin unbuttered 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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 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. Pepper + cherviltop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together867 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 soft, spreadable texture to the filling.
Indian chutney
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the savory ham.
Chopped ham
Provides the savory, salty base and the main body of the filling.

Swap the chervil

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Chervilthe original

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