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Ham Patties

Ham patties made with chopped ham, crumbed bread, butter, milk, egg, and topped with cracker crumbs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Patties

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix chopped ham and crumbed bread in a bowl.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt.

  3. Add butter and moisten with milk to form a soft paste.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill muffin tins with the mixture.

  2. Break an egg on top of each filled muffin tin.

  3. Sprinkle with cracker crumbs.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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

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

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

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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 savoury flavour and bulk of each patty.
Crumbed bread
Absorbs moisture and gives the mixture a soft, binding structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs so the mixture holds together as a soft paste.
Egg
Sets during baking to bind the patty and give it a firm top.

The step that matters

Moistening with milk to a soft paste. Too little milk leaves the crumbs dry and crumbly, while too much makes the mixture loose and soggy. The crumbs need enough liquid to hold together without becoming wet, so the patties keep their shape while baking.

“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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