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Jellied Ham Loaf

A chilled loaf made from gelatin, chicken stock, ham, mayonnaise, and seasonings, topped with sliced eggs and gherkins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Jellied Ham Loaf

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water.

  2. Dissolve the soaked gelatine in hot chicken stock and add lemon juice.

Make the layers

  1. In the bottom of a mold, pour a layer of the stock mixture about ⅛ inch thick and let it firm up.

  2. Once firm, arrange the sliced eggs and gherkins in a decorative pattern on top.

  3. Mix the remaining stock with Worcestershire sauce, onion, pimento, ground ham, and mayonnaise.

  4. Pour this mixture into the mold on top of the design.

  5. Refrigerate until firm.

Serve

  1. To serve, unmold onto crisp lettuce or watercress.

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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Ham + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the stock mixture into a firm, sliceable jelly.
Ground cooked ham
Provides the savoury body and meaty flavour of the loaf.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and moisture, giving the filling a smooth, rich texture.
Hard cooked eggs
Adds firm texture and forms the decorative pattern in the jelly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the jelly.

The step that matters

Let the first layer firm before adding the design. Gelatine only sets once it cools, so the first layer must be firm before the eggs and gherkins are placed on it. Pouring the next layer over a soft base can blur the pattern and let the layers mix.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, sauce, egg, onion):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Pumpkinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, sauce, egg, onion. 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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