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Ham Salad

A salad of chopped ham and lettuce dressed with a mustard, vinegar, and sweet cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Ham Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Combine salt, mustard, butter, vinegar, sugar, and pepper in a saucepan.

  2. Add beaten egg yolks and cook until the mixture creams.

Assemble the salad

  1. Allow to cool, then pour over chopped ham and lettuce, mixing well.

  2. Stir in sweet cream.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they cook and give it a rich, creamy body.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the finished dressing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing a smooth mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances its richness.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg yolks into the dressing. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with gentle heat. If the heat is too high or the mixture is not stirred, the yolks can scramble and turn grainy, so the dressing must be cooked slowly and stirred until it creams.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, vinegar, sugar, pepper, egg, cream):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar, sugar, pepper, egg, cream. 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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