Name: Ham Salad
Ingredients: 1 cup boiled or fried ham, minced; 4 hard-boiled eggs; 1 teaspoon celery seed; 1 teaspoon mustard; 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce; 2 green peppers; cold mashed potatoes; mayonnaise; minced parsley or lettuce

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Ham Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Boil eggs for at least 20 minutes, then cool and peel them.
Mince the ham and hard-boiled eggs.

Assemble

In a bowl, combine minced ham, eggs, celery seed, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and chopped green peppers.
Make nests with cold mashed potatoes on a serving plate.
Fill the nests with the ham mixture, heaping it high.
Dress with mayonnaise and garnish with minced parsley or lettuce.

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.

Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Hard-boiled eggs add body and a firm, creamy texture to the filling.
Ham: Provides the savory, meaty flavor that forms the base of the salad.
Mayonnaise: Adds moisture and richness, binding the filling and softening its texture.
Cold mashed potatoes: Form the nests that hold the filling, giving the dish a starchy, sturdy base.
Green peppers: Contribute a fresh, slightly bitter crunch that balances the rich filling.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, egg, celery, mustard, sauce, pepper, parsley):

Horseradishfits better
Shallotfits better
Lettucefits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg, celery, mustard, sauce, pepper, parsley. 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.