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Ham Sandwiches

A sandwich made by mixing butter, mustard, oil, pepper, salt, egg yolk, and chopped ham, then spreading between bread slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and ham work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 747 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Ham Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter until smooth.

  2. Add the mustard, salad oil, pepper, salt, and egg yolk. Mix thoroughly.

  3. Stir in enough chopped ham to achieve a consistent mixture.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture between thin slices of bread.

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 + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

  3. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. White pepper + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams to a smooth base that carries the other ingredients and gives the spread richness.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies the fats and liquids so the spread holds together smoothly.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that cuts through the richness of the butter and ham.
Chopped ham
Provides the savoury meat flavour and bulk of the filling.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and mixing thoroughly. Egg yolk is an emulsifier, so it must be fully blended into the butter and oil to form a smooth, stable mixture. If it is only partly mixed, the spread can look greasy or split and feel uneven.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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