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Baked Virginia Ham

A ham soaked, boiled, spiced with cloves, covered in brown sugar and cracker crumbs, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,666 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Virginia 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. Soak the ham in cold water for 48 hours, changing the water four times.

  2. Place the ham in fresh cold water, bring to a boil, and simmer for 4 to 6 hours until tender.

  3. Once cool, remove the skin and stick cloves into the ham.

Glaze and bake

  1. Cover the ham with brown sugar and sprinkle with fine cracker crumbs.

  2. Brown the ham in the oven at 400°F (200°C).

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 + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

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

  2. Clove + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,084 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Clove and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 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

Ham
Is the main cut that is cured, simmered until tender, and then browned.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the oven.
Fine cracker crumbs
Form a crust over the sugar that helps the coating hold and brown.

The step that matters

Brown the ham in the oven at 400°F (200°C). The sugar and crumb coating can burn quickly at high heat. Watch closely so the surface caramelises and crisps without turning bitter.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sugar. 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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