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Roast Ham with Cider Sauce

A roasted ham simmered with cider and aromatics, then baked with sugar, breadcrumbs, and paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and cider work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and 154 recipes mention both. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Contains: wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the ham in cold water for several hours or overnight.

  2. Wash the ham thoroughly and scrape it.

  3. Trim off the hard skin near the end of the bone.

Simmer

  1. Place the ham in a kettle with onion, carrot, parsley, bay leaf, cloves, and peppercorns.

  2. Cover with cold water and bring to a boil.

  3. Simmer for about four hours until tender.

  4. After two hours, add the cider.

  5. Allow the ham to cool in the cooking liquid.

Glaze and bake

  1. Remove the ham from the liquid and take off the skin.

  2. Sprinkle with sugar and bread crumbs.

  3. Sprinkle paprika over the ham every two inches.

  4. Insert a clove in the center of each dash.

  5. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for one hour.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + cidertop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Ham + breadtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,536 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + clovetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,916 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together21,599 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

Ham
Is the main cut that becomes tender through long, slow simmering.
Cider
Adds acidity and fruity flavor to the cooking liquid and the finished ham.
Sugar
Caramelizes in the oven, adding sweetness and browning to the crust.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating on the surface of the ham.

The step that matters

Simmering until tender. Simmering gently keeps the ham moving slowly enough to break down connective tissue without toughening the meat. Boiling hard can make the outer meat tough and dry, so keep the liquid at a gentle simmer.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Parsnipbetter flavor fit
  3. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, carrot, parsley, clove, cider, sugar, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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