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Ham Sandwiches

A sandwich made with boiled ham, egg yolks, mustard, butter, and vinegar, served on bread or biscuits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ham Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Boil the ham until very tender, then let it cool in the cooking water.

  2. Chop nearly half of the ham finely.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, rub the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs smooth with a knife.

  2. Add mustard, salt, and black pepper to the egg yolks.

  3. Mix in enough melted butter to achieve a smooth and creamy consistency.

  4. Thin the mixture with good vinegar and combine it with the chopped ham.

Assemble

  1. Spread butter and salad on each side of the bread or biscuits before assembling.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mashed yolks form the creamy body of the filling and bind it together.
Melted butter
Adds fat that gives the yolk mixture a smooth, creamy texture.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts the richness of the yolks and fat.
Good vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the filling and loosens its consistency.
Ham
Provides savoury meat flavour and the main substance of the filling.

The step that matters

Rubbing the yolks smooth before adding butter. Yolks must be broken down fully before the butter is added; lumps left in the yolk will not disperse evenly, leaving a grainy rather than creamy filling. Adding butter gradually helps the fat emulsify into a stable, smooth mixture.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, egg, pepper, butter, vinegar, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg, pepper, butter, vinegar, bread. 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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