Why it works: Ham and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,084 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Boiled Ham
Ingredients
Directions
Cover the ham with cold water.
Boil for 15 minutes per pound.
When half done, add the brown sugar and finish boiling.
Do not cut the ham for several hours.
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 + sugartop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,084 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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 being cooked, so it is the dish's core and its flavor source.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps form a glaze-like browned surface on the ham.
The step that matters
Adding the brown sugar at the halfway point. Sugar added at the start would burn or darken too much during the long boil. Adding it when the ham is half done lets it sweeten the surface without scorching.
“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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