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Potted Ham

A dish of chopped ham mixed with butter, celery salt, pepper, and curry powder, packed into jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Potted Ham

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potted Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Fry slices of ham until cooked.

  2. Pass the ham through a meat chopper.

  3. Return the chopped ham to the frying pan with the drippings. Heat and mix thoroughly.

Pot and serve

  1. Pack the mixture into small jars.

  2. For savory sandwiches, beat butter with celery salt, pepper, and a dust of curry powder until soft and creamy.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

  3. Ham + celerytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Slices of ham
Provides the meaty base that the whole spread is built from.
Drippings from frying
Adds fat and savory flavor that carries the ham and keeps it moist.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, making the seasoned spread soft and spreadable.
Curry powder
Adds warm aromatic spice that flavors the spread.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pepper, 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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