Name: Ham with Madeira
Ingredients: slices of well-boiled ham; 1 tablespoon marsala; espagnole sauce

Why it works: Ham and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,314 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Ham with Madeira

Ingredients

slices of well-boiled ham
1 tablespoon marsala
espagnole sauce

Directions

Gently heat the slices of ham in a saucepan.
Add the marsala and espagnole sauce.
Serve hot alongside the turkey.

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 + saucetop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,314 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

Ham: Provides the main savoury meat that is warmed through gently in the sauce.
Marsala: Adds a sweet, fortified wine flavour that deepens the sauce.
Espagnole sauce: Forms the rich, thickened brown sauce that coats the ham.

“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.