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Potted Ham, or Tongue

A preserved ham or tongue made into a fine paste, packed in a pot, covered with clarified butter, and stored overnight.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Potted Ham, or Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold boiled ham or tongue into pieces.

  2. Pound it in a mortar with the fat or fresh butter until it forms a fine paste.

  3. Season with a little pounded mace or allspice if desired.

Pot and set

  1. Pack the mixture tightly into a pot.

  2. Cover the mixture with clarified butter, about ¼ inch thick.

  3. Let it stand in a cool place overnight.

Serve

  1. Serve it in the pot or cut into thin slices.

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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Mace + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Ham + macetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,050 recipes

Mace and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,405 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

Cold boiled ham or tongue
Provides the main meat flavour and the body of the paste.
Fat from ham or tongue, or fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture so the pounded meat becomes a smooth, spreadable paste.
Clarified butter
Forms a sealed layer over the surface that helps keep air out and the potted meat fresh.

The step that matters

Pounding to a fine paste. Pounding breaks the meat into very small pieces and blends in the fat, so the texture becomes smooth and spreadable. Coarse pieces stay chewy and separate from the fat.

Swap the mace

The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter. 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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