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Barbecued Ham

Barbecued Ham is a ham slice cooked with butter, ketchup, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,505 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Barbecued Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the ham slice neatly and cut it into quarters.

Cook and serve

  1. In a skillet, heat the butter, ketchup, and sherry until hot.

  2. Add the ham to the skillet and turn quickly once or twice.

  3. Serve immediately.

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 + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Ham + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Tomato + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together492 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  5. Ketchup + sherrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together177 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled ham
Supplies the meat; brief heating in the sauce keeps the thin slices tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the warm sauce and helps it coat the ham.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity, and its sugars brown lightly in the hot skillet.
Sherry
Adds acidity and a fortified wine aroma that balances the sweet ketchup.

The step that matters

Turning the ham quickly once or twice. Thin ham cooks in seconds, so overcooking dries and toughens the meat. Brief contact with the hot sauce warms it while keeping it moist.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, ketchup, sherry. 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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