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Baked Ham

A ham baked with a brown sugar and molasses glaze, spiced with cloves and cooked in sherry and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Baked Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Scrub and cleanse the ham.

  2. Soak it in cold water overnight.

  3. Place the ham in a large kettle.

  4. Cover with cold water.

  5. Bring the water slowly to a boil.

  6. Gradually add the molasses.

  7. Allow 18 minutes for each pound of ham.

  8. Remove the ham from the stove.

  9. Let it cool in the cooking water.

  10. Remove the ham from the water.

  11. Skin it.

Glaze and bake

  1. Stick the cloves into the ham.

  2. Rub the brown sugar into the ham.

  3. Place it in a roasting pan.

  4. Pour the sherry and vinegar over it.

  5. Baste continually.

  6. Allow it to warm through and brown nicely, which should take about 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with a garnish of glazed sweet potatoes.

  2. Serve the caramel from the ham in a gravy tureen.

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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sherry + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

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

  3. Molasses + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sherry + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,237 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds sweetness and dark color, and helps the surface caramelize during cooking.
Brown sugar
Forms a sweet crust that browns and caramelizes on the ham's surface.
Cooking sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that flavor the ham as it bastes in the pan.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the molasses and sugar.
Ham
Provides the main meat, whose fat and juices carry the flavor of the glaze.

The step that matters

Baste continually. Sugars in the glaze burn quickly at oven heat. Frequent basting keeps the surface moist and lets it caramelize evenly rather than scorching.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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