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Ham with Cheese

A toasted bread topped with ham, cheese, and cream, browned in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 with Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Brown the bread in the butter and then remove it.

Finish

  1. Add the ham crumbs, cheese, cream, and seasoning to the dish.

  2. Stir for a few minutes and serve on the 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the crisp, browned base that the topping is served on.
Butter
Fat that browns the bread and carries flavor across the dish.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the ham and cheese mixture.
Cheese
Melts into the warm cream to add savory flavor and body.
Grated ham
Contributes salty, meaty flavor to the topping.

The step that matters

Stir the cream and cheese mixture over gentle heat. Cream and cheese can curdle or turn grainy if they boil or overheat. Gentle, steady stirring keeps the dairy smooth and evenly combined with the ham.

“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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