Skip to main content
Main

Stuffed Pork Ham

A pork ham stuffed with bread crumbs, onion, spices, and brown sugar, then baked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Pork Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin the pork ham with a sharp knife and make incisions 1½ inches apart, moving the knife point inside the meat to create space for stuffing.

  2. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, chopped onion, brown sugar, mixed spices, celery seed, salt, and red pepper, then moisten the stuffing with vinegar.

Stuff and cook

  1. Stuff the ham with the mixture and sprinkle with brown sugar, vinegar, and cracker crumbs.

  2. Cook the ham slowly until perfectly tender.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pork ham
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender with slow cooking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb vinegar and moisture to form a soft, moist stuffing inside the meat.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown as the ham cooks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that moistens the stuffing and brightens the rich pork flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the ham slowly until perfectly tender. Pork ham is a tough, collagen-rich cut. Low, slow heat gives collagen time to break down into gelatin, which makes the meat tender and juicy; rushing with high heat leaves it dry and chewy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, ham, bread, onion, sugar, pepper, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipes