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Baked Ham

A ham baked with a bread and butter dressing, then browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Ham

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the ham in cold water for 24 hours.

  2. Cover the ham with cold water in a pot.

  3. Bring the water to a boil.

  4. Reduce heat.

  5. Simmer until the bone is loose, about 15 minutes per pound.

  6. Remove the ham from heat.

  7. Let the ham cool in the water for several hours or overnight.

  8. Place the ham in a baking pan.

  9. Remove the skin and excess fat.

Coat and bake

  1. Make a stiff batter with flour and water.

  2. Cover the top of the ham with the batter.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 2 hours.

  4. Remove the batter.

  5. Make slight incisions all over the ham.

  6. Sprinkle with brown sugar and black pepper.

Add the dressing and brown

  1. Mix grated bread or crackers, chopped onion, butter, salt, pepper, egg, and a little water to make a dressing.

  2. Cover the top of the ham with the dressing.

  3. Brown in the oven.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Is the main piece of meat, cooked gently in water and then baked until tender.
Bread or crackers
Soaks up moisture and forms the body of the dressing that sits on the ham.
Egg
Binds the dressing so it holds together on top of the ham.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the dressing and helps it brown.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface caramelize and brown.

The step that matters

Simmer until the bone is loose. Simmering gently keeps the ham moist and tender; boiling hard can toughen the meat and make it dry. Cooling the ham in its liquid helps it stay juicy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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