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Baked Ham

A ham baked with a spice paste, cider, and a sauce made from the pan drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. 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 the ham

  1. Wash the ham thoroughly in cold water.

  2. Sprinkle with baking soda and scrub with a small brush. Rinse in cold water, trim, and place in a baking pan, skin side down.

  3. In a bowl, mix the pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and celery seed. Rub the spice mixture thoroughly into the meat while in the pan.

  4. Sprinkle a thick layer of finely chopped onion over the ham.

Make the paste and bake

  1. Make a paste by slowly adding ½ cup of water to 1 cup of flour.

  2. Roll the paste into a thin sheet large enough to cover the entire flesh side of the ham, tucking it down close to the skin.

  3. Fill the pan ½ full with hot cider.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 4 hours, basting the top of the paste.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. When done, remove the paste and skin, placing the ham on a hot platter, fat side down.

  2. Take 4 tablespoons of fat from the surface of the liquid in the pan. Mix with 2 tablespoons of flour, add 1½ pints of good stock and ½ pint of cider, stirring until boiling.

  3. Add a grating of nutmeg and strain into a sauce boat.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,009 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 that is slowly cooked until tender inside the paste.
All-purpose flour
Forms the paste that seals the ham and traps moisture, and thickens the sauce.
Baking soda
Scrubbed onto the skin to help loosen and clean its surface before baking.
Onion
Adds savory flavor that soaks into the ham and the pan liquid as it cooks.
Cider
Provides acidity and fruity sweetness to the cooking liquid and the sauce.

The step that matters

Sealing the flour paste over the ham. The paste must be rolled thin and fitted close to the skin so it forms a continuous seal. A gap lets moisture escape and the meat dry out during the long bake.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, pepper, clove, cinnamon, celery, flour, cider):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pepper, clove, cinnamon, celery, flour, cider. 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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