Why it works: Pepper and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,491 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Chicken and Ham Sandwich
Ingredients
Directions
Remove skin, gristle, and bone from the chicken and mince it.
Add a small amount of cooked ham to the minced chicken.
In a bowl, combine the chicken, ham, black pepper, coarse sea salt, lime juice, mixed spice, mustard, and butter.
Beat the mixture well and transfer it to pots.
Spread butter over the top of the mixture in the pots.
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.
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Pepper + limetop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,491 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Lime + mustardtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together392 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,430 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,192 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,497 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the lime
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, pepper, mustard, butter):
- Lemonfits better
- Limethe original
- Coconutfits about as well
- Avocadofits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, pepper, mustard, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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