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Frizzled Ham

A ham dish cooked with butter, flour, and milk, seasoned with pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Frizzled Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Cut the ham into thin shavings.

Cook the ham

  1. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Fry the ham until it begins to color.

  3. Sprinkle the flour over the ham and fry until nicely browned, stirring to prevent scorching.

  4. Pour in the milk and bring to a boil.

  5. Season with pepper and serve.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Lean ham
Provides the main meat and savory flavor, and browns in the skillet.
Flour
Browns with the ham and thickens the milk into a sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid that thickens with the flour into a creamy sauce.
Butter
Fat that fries the ham and adds richness and browning.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the ham. Flour can scorch on the hot skillet surface before it browns evenly, giving a bitter taste. Constant stirring spreads heat and keeps the flour moving so it toasts to a golden brown instead of burning.

“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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