Name: Ham with Cream Gravy
Ingredients: 1 ham; 2 cups cream; salt to taste; pepper to taste

Why it works: Ham and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,370 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Ham with Cream Gravy

Ingredients

1 ham
2 cups cream
salt to taste
pepper to taste

Directions

Make the gravy

Cook the ham until heated through.
In a saucepan, heat the cream over medium heat. Season the cream with salt and pepper.

Serve

Serve the cream gravy over the sliced ham.

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.

Ham + creamtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,370 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,058 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together21,449 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ham: Is the main protein, served sliced and warmed through in this dish.
Cream: Thickens into a rich, smooth gravy when heated and seasoned, adding body and fat.

“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.