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Deviled Ham

Deviled Ham is a dish of fried ham slices topped with a mustard, cayenne, jelly, vinegar, and sherry sauce.

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

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 ↓

Deviled Ham

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the ham

  1. Fry the ham slices in a pan until the edges begin to crisp.

  2. Transfer the ham to a chafing dish and keep hot.

Make the sauce

  1. In the remaining fat, stir in the mustard, cayenne pepper, tart jelly, and vinegar.

  2. Bring the mixture to a quick boil, add the sherry, and pour over the ham.

Serve

  1. 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + sherrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Ham + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 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

Ham slices
Provide the main savoury base, with crisped edges adding browned flavour and texture.
Tart jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity acidity to balance the sharp mustard and vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that cuts the richness of the fat and brightens the sauce.
Made mustard
Adds sharp pungency and emulsifying body that gives the sauce its character.
Sherry
Adds aromatic depth and a mellow, wine-like sweetness to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture to a quick boil. Boiling briefly drives off harsh sharpness from the vinegar and lets the jelly melt and combine evenly. Overcooking reduces the sauce too much and dulls the aromatic sherry added afterward.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cabbagefits less well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pepper, vinegar, sherry. 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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