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Dessert

Ham-bouchees, with Cream

Ham Bouchees are small puff pastry cases filled with grated ham and whipped cream, seasoned with white pepper and cayenne, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: White pepper and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,451 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Ham-bouchees, with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated ham with the whipped cream.

  2. Season the mixture with white pepper and cayenne to taste.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill the small puff pastry cases with the ham mixture.

  2. Sprinkle a little chopped parsley over each filled case.

  3. Cover the cases and serve on a dish lined with a folded napkin or lace paper.

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. White pepper + parsleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Ham + creamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Ham + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,249 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Cream + white peppertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,439 recipes
  5. Ham + white peppertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together535 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean ham
Provides the savoury, meaty flavour that forms the filling.
Whipped cream
Adds moisture and a light, soft texture to the ham mixture.
Small puff pastry cases
Hold the filling and provide a crisp, flaky shell.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Macefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, cream, white pepper. 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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