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Ham Salad

A salad of chopped boiled ham and lettuce dressed with a creamy vinegar and mustard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ham Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the boiled ham finely and add the heart and inside leaves of the lettuce.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine salt, vinegar, butter, egg yolks, sugar, and mustard.

  2. Boil the mixture until creamy, then let it cool.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the cooled dressing over the ham and lettuce, and mix well.

  2. Stir in the sweet cream before serving.

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. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the dressing, giving it a creamy body when heated.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks and cream.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mild texture to the finished salad.
Boiled ham
Provides the savoury, meaty base of the salad.

The step that matters

Boiling the dressing until creamy. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with heat, but overheating can scramble them into lumps. Heat gently and stir, then let it cool fully before adding it to the salad.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, vinegar, butter, egg, sugar, mustard, cream):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, vinegar, butter, egg, sugar, mustard, cream. 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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