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 ↓
Ham, Broiled
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Preheat your broiler.
Place the ham or bacon slices on a hot dish.
Add a small piece of butter on each slice of ham.
Sprinkle lightly with pepper.
Broil
Broil quickly until cooked through.
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.
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Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,475 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,058 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Ham or bacon
- Forms the main dish and provides its savory, salty flavor as it browns under the broiler.
- Butter
- Adds fat that keeps the surface moist and carries flavor as it melts over the slices.
The step that matters
Broil quickly until cooked through. Thin slices cook in minutes under intense direct heat. Leaving them too long dries out the meat and makes it tough, so watch them closely as they cook.
“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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