Why it works: Ham and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,666 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓
Baked Ham
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Soak the ham in cold water for 3 hours.
Boil the ham slowly in fresh cold water until tender, about 3 hours.
Remove the skin from the ham.
Bake
Stick the ham with 12 whole cloves.
Bake the ham at 350°F (175°C) for about 1.5 hours or until browned.
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.
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Ham + clovetop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,666 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
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 of meat, which is cured and then tenderised by slow boiling before baking.
- Whole cloves
- Add a warm, aromatic flavour to the surface of the ham.
The step that matters
Boil the ham slowly until tender. Boiling gently keeps the meat from toughening and drying out. A hard boil forces the muscle fibres to tighten and squeeze out moisture, so the ham turns tough rather than tender.
“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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