Name: Westphalia Ham, Roasted a LA St. James
Ingredients: 1 Westphalia ham; mirepoix (carrots, onions, celery); large iron skewer; string; venison paste; flour and water paste; greased paper; ½ pint brandy or Malaga wine

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Westphalia Ham, Roasted a LA St. James

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the Westphalia ham according to previous directions and steep it in mirepoix for the allotted time.
Run a large iron skewer through the ham and fasten it to the spit with string.
Reduce the mirepoix and cover the underside of the ham with it.
Wrap the ham in large sheets of oiled cartridge paper.
Cover the paper with venison paste and tie it with string.
Roast the ham before a moderate fire for about five hours.
After three and a half hours, make a hole in the paste and infuse with ½ pint of brandy or Malaga wine.
Stop the hole with paste and roast for an additional twenty minutes.
Carefully remove the ham from the spit and trim it.
Set the ham to dry on a baking sheet in the oven, glaze it, and serve with the reserved essence for flavor.

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.

Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,029 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ham + venisontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, carrot, celery, venison, flour, brandy):

Turnipfits better
Parsnipfits better
Shallotfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, carrot, celery, venison, flour, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.