Name: Ham Sandwiches
Ingredients: slices of bread; butter; cold boiled ham; mayonnaise dressing or bottled salad dressing

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

slices of bread
butter
cold boiled ham
mayonnaise dressing or bottled salad dressing

Directions

Prepare

Cut thin slices of bread and butter them lightly.
Chop or grind the cold boiled ham.

Assemble

Mix the ham with enough mayonnaise or salad dressing to make it moist.
Spread the ham mixture between layers of 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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

Cold boiled ham: Provides the savoury filling that forms the main body of the sandwich.
Mayonnaise dressing or bottled salad dressing: Adds moisture and fat so the chopped ham holds together and does not dry out.
Butter: Lightly coats the bread to add richness and help keep moisture out of the slices.

“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.