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Baked Ham

A ham soaked, boiled, and baked with cider, sugar, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,683 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Baked Ham

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Wash the ham well and scrape the lower part.

  2. Soak the ham in water overnight.

Boil

  1. The next morning, place the ham in cold water and boil slowly for several hours until very tender.

  2. While the ham is hot, remove the skin by peeling it off.

Bake and glaze

  1. Stick cloves into the ham and place it in a baking pan.

  2. Add 1 pint of sweet cider to the pan.

  3. Cover the ham thickly with sugar.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven, basting occasionally, until browned.

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. Cider + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,683 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Ham + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  3. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Ham + cidertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together83 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Cider + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 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
Is the main cut that is softened by long boiling and then glazed and browned.
Sweet cider
Adds moisture and fruity sweetness to the pan, helping keep the ham juicy while it bakes.
Sugar
Forms a sweet crust that caramelises and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until very tender. Gentle simmering breaks down the connective tissue in the ham, so it becomes tender. A hard boil can toughen the outer meat and cause it to fall apart unevenly.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, cider, sugar. 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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