Name: Ham with Windsor Beans
Ingredients: 1 ham; Windsor beans; salt; water; butter

Why it works: Ham and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,475 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Ham with Windsor Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the ham in salted water as directed.
Trim and skin the ham.
Serve the ham over boiled Windsor beans tossed in melted butter.

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.

Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,799 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ham + beanstop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together140 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).