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Boiled Ham

A ham boiled with pepper and cloves, served hot or cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Boiled Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wipe the ham with a coarse cloth to remove dust and mold.

  2. Soak the ham in cold water for 1 hour, then wash it thoroughly.

  3. Cut away the hardened surface from the base and butt of the ham.

Cook

  1. Place the ham in a pot with cold water and bring to a moderate boil.

  2. Cook for 20 minutes per pound of meat; a 12-pound ham will take 4 hours.

Serve

  1. To serve hot, peel off the skin, place the ham fat side up on a platter, and dot with black pepper and whole cloves.

  2. To serve cold, leave the ham in the cooking water until it cools to retain juiciness.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 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. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the main meat, whose fat and juices carry most of the flavour and moisture.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic heat to the finished surface of the ham.
Whole cloves
Contributes warm, aromatic spice that perfumes the ham's surface when served hot.

The step that matters

Bringing the ham to a moderate boil and holding it there. Boiling too hard toughens the meat and drives out juices, while cooking too gently can leave the centre under-heated. A steady, moderate simmer cooks the ham evenly and keeps it tender and moist.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pepper. 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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