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Ham Sandwiches

A simple sandwich made with stale bread, butter, ham, and mixed mustard.

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

Assemble

  1. Butter the slices of stale bread thinly.

  2. Cover half of the slices with thin slices of ham.

  3. Spread a little mixed mustard over the ham.

  4. Place a buttered slice of bread on top of each.

Finish

  1. Press the sandwiches together firmly and cut into neat pieces.

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. Bread + hamtop 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. Bread + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

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

  5. Butter + hamtop 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

Stale bread
Provides the sturdy structure that holds the filling and keeps its shape when pressed.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the bread and carries flavor, and helps the layers stick together.
Ham
Supplies the savory, salty filling that forms the main flavor of the sandwich.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavor that balances the richness of the ham and butter.

The step that matters

Press the sandwiches together firmly and cut into neat pieces.. Firm pressing compresses the layers so the butter and mustard bind them together. Well-pressed sandwiches hold their filling and give clean, neat cut edges instead of spilling ham.

Swap the mustard

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

  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 bread, butter, ham. 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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