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Salad

Salad with Ham

A salad of lettuce, ham, beaten egg, and vinegar, seasoned with coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,370 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Salad with Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Strip off the outer leaves of the lettuce, cut it in half, and wash it well.

  2. Fry the slice of ham until done, then remove it from the pan.

Make the dressing

  1. Pour the beaten egg and vinegar into the hot fat in the pan, and heat until it thickens.

  2. Cut the lettuce into small pieces and pour the egg and vinegar mixture over it while it is lukewarm.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the salad in a deep dish, cut the ham into 1‑inch square pieces, and arrange them on top.

  2. Let it stand for about five minutes 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 + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  3. Ham + vinegartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  4. Lettuce + hamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Lettuce + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg thickens with the vinegar and hot fat to form a warm, creamy coating for the lettuce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the fat and egg.
Lettuce
Forms the crisp, leafy base of the salad that the warm dressing coats.
Ham
Adds salty, savory flavor and chewy texture from the rendered and browned meat.

The step that matters

Heating the egg and vinegar until it thickens. Egg proteins set as they heat, so if the mixture overheats it can scramble into lumps instead of forming a smooth coating. Heat gently and stop once it thickens.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg, vinegar. 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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