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Whole Boned Ham

A whole boned ham stuffed with mushrooms, truffles, garlic, celery, thyme, then simmered with ham water, soup stock, gelatin, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Margaret Brown · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper 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 ↓

Whole Boned Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Take a whole ham, split it along the inside, not through the skin, but cut it along the side that faces the dish.

  2. Remove all the bones from the ham.

  3. Prepare the stuffing by combining mushrooms, half‑sized truffles, 1 small clove of garlic, 2 stalks of celery, and a teaspoonful of thyme; chop coarsely.

  4. Stuff the cavity with the chopped mixture, sew the ham closed, and place it in a closed bag to maintain shape.

Cook and press the ham

  1. Place the ham in a pot with 1 dozen cloves of garlic and simmer gently for 3 hours.

  2. After cooking, transfer the ham to a closed pan and press until very cold.

  3. Remove the skin.

Make the aspic

  1. In a separate container, combine 1½ pints of ham water, 1½ pints of soup stock, and a box of gelatin dissolved in a cup of cold water.

  2. Add pepper and salt to the mixture, beat the whites and yolks of 2 eggs, and stir into the stock and ham water to clarify.

  3. Return the mixture to the pot, bring to a boil, and skim off any fat; stir until it boils.

  4. After boiling for 10 minutes, strain the gelatin through a flannel bag.

Mold and garnish

  1. If no ham mold is available, cut the gelatin into diamond shapes and place around the ham; cut the remaining gelatin finely and spread over the ham.

  2. Garnish the ham with carrots, beets cut into flower shapes, parsley, and a little on either side of the ham.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

343Calories
34 gProtein
20 gFat
6 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 9 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Pork100g cooked242
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Soupnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Margaret Brown. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the stock into a firm jelly that holds the cut shapes and coats the ham.
Eggs
Their whites trap cloudy particles as they cook, clarifying the stock into a clear aspic.
Celery
Adds a fresh, savory aroma to the stuffing and the ham.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture until it boils. As the stock heats, the egg whites cook and rise into a raft that traps cloudy particles, leaving the aspic clear. Boiling too hard or disturbing the raft afterward can break it and leave the jelly cloudy.

Swap the garlic

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, ham, clove, egg, 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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