Name: Ham Sandwiches
Ingredients: 1 cup ground boiled ham; 4 stalks tender heart celery; 2 hard cooked eggs; 1 tablespoon melted butter; 4 teaspoons salt; 1 teaspoon dry mustard; Dash of cayenne pepper; 2 tablespoons cream

Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Ham Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

Grind the ham finely.
Chop or grind the celery, saving the juice.
Grind the hard cooked eggs.
Mix all ingredients together.

Assemble the sandwiches

Spread the mixture between slices of buttered bread.
Optionally, add lettuce between the slices.

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.

Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together747 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ground boiled ham: Provides the savory meat base that forms the body of the filling.
Celery: Adds crisp texture and moisture, and its saved juice keeps the filling spreadable.
Hard cooked eggs: Add richness and a creamy body to the filling.
Cream: Adds moisture and smoothness, helping the ground ingredients bind into a spread.

Swap the mustard

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

Leekfits about as well
Mustardthe original
Asparagusfits about as well
Spinachfits about as well

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