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Dessert

Mousses of Ham

A chilled ham mousse made with tomato puree, cream, aspic jelly, gelatine, and egg white, served in small moulds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,526 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mousses of Ham

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line and decorate small dariole moulds with chopped jelly.

  2. Mince the ham twice and pound it well.

Make the mousse

  1. Stir in the tomato puree, slightly beaten cream, salt, and carmine.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg white.

  3. Add the dissolved gelatine in aspic jelly and mould when slightly thickened.

Serve

  1. Turn out when set and decorate with jelly.

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

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

  2. Ham + creamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Ham + tomatotop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together348 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Tomato + creamtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,034 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the main savoury body and flavour of the mousse.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, soft texture to the mousse.
Egg white
Beaten into the mixture to lighten it and add airy structure.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when turned out.
Aspic jelly
Adds moisture and a clear savoury jelly that helps the mousse set.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg white. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles from the beaten egg white intact, which gives the mousse its light texture. Stirring hard would knock the air out and make it dense.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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