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Ham and Cheese Sandwiches

A sandwich made with pounded ham, Gruyère cheese, mustard, and butter spread between buttered bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 and Cheese Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pound the ham until fine.

Assemble

  1. Mix the pounded ham with the grated Gruyère cheese, mustard, and a little butter to form a paste.

  2. Spread the mixture between thin slices of buttered bread.

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. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the savory meaty flavor and bulk of the filling once pounded fine.
Gruyère cheese
Adds rich, savory flavor and helps bind the filling into a spreadable paste.
Mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavor that cuts through the richness of the cheese and butter.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture, softening the paste and adding richness to the bread.

The step that matters

Pound the ham until fine. Finely pounded ham blends evenly with the cheese and butter into a smooth paste that spreads well. Coarse pieces stay chewy and can tear the thin bread.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, cheese, butter, 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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