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Hot Ham Sandwiches

A sandwich of ham and bread coated in egg and milk, fried in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Hot Ham Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sandwiches

  1. Spread chopped ham seasoned with mustard on slices of bread.

  2. Press the sandwiches together.

Make the egg dip

  1. In a bowl, combine the beaten egg and milk.

  2. Dip each sandwich into the egg and milk mixture.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the sandwiches in hot butter until golden.

  2. Drain on paper and serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + hamtop 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

Eggs
Bind with milk to form a coating that sets and browns around the bread.
Milk
Thins the beaten egg so it coats the sandwiches evenly and stays moist when cooked.
Butter
Fries the coating golden and adds rich flavour to the outside of the sandwich.
Bread
Soaks up the egg mixture and holds the filling together while it fries.
Ham
Provides the savoury filling that the sandwich is built around.

The step that matters

Dip each sandwich into the egg and milk mixture. The bread must be coated but not left to soak, or it turns soggy and falls apart in the hot butter. A quick, even dip lets the egg set into a crisp golden crust.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, ham, egg, milk, butter):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, ham, egg, milk, butter. 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.

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