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Delicate Ham

A baked ham glazed with brown sugar, mustard, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and mustard work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 747 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Delicate Ham

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Blend the brown sugar and mustard together.

  3. Rub the mixture into the ham.

  4. Cover the ham with milk.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Ham + milktop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,089 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Mustard + milktop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Raw ham
The main cut being baked, providing the meat and most of the flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown and caramelise in the oven.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, tangy note that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Milk
Surrounds the ham with moisture, helping keep it from drying out while it bakes.

The step that matters

Covering the ham with milk before baking. The milk keeps the surface moist during the long, dry heat of the oven, so the meat stays tender. Watch the time, because overbaking dries out ham even when it is covered with liquid.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Sweet potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sugar, milk. 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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