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Baked Ham

A ham baked with vinegar, then coated with sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Wash the ham thoroughly.

  2. Scrape the lower part of the ham.

  3. Soak the ham in water overnight, ensuring it is fully covered.

  4. Remove the skin from the ham.

Bake and glaze

  1. Place the ham in a dripping pan with 1 pint of vinegar.

  2. Baste the ham every 15 to 20 minutes while baking.

  3. Bake for 4 hours.

  4. Cover the ham thickly with powdered white sugar, ground cinnamon, a little nutmeg, and a little red pepper.

  5. Return the ham to the oven to brown.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Forms the main body of the dish and carries all the flavour and moisture during baking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the pan liquid, which helps tenderise the meat and balances the sweet glaze.
Powdered white sugar
Sweetens the crust and caramelises in the oven to create a browned, glossy surface.

The step that matters

Returning the ham to the oven to brown. Sugar darkens quickly through caramelisation and browning once the glaze is exposed to dry heat. Too long or too hot can scorch the sugar and make it bitter, while too little time leaves the glaze pale and sticky.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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