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Baked Ham

A ham cooked in water, seasoned with pepper and cloves, then baked with cider vinegar, brown sugar, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove 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 ↓

Baked Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer the ham

  1. Wash the ham and place it in cool water.

  2. Bring to a boil and cook slowly for 30 minutes.

  3. Drain the ham.

  4. Add enough fresh water to cover the ham.

  5. Add whole pepper and cloves.

  6. Bring to a slow boil again.

  7. Add cider vinegar.

Glaze and bake

  1. Once the ham is tender enough to remove the skin, place it in a baking pan.

  2. Cover the ham with brown sugar and fine bread crumbs.

  3. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Clove + cidertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,683 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 simmered until tender and then baked.
Light brown sugar
Sweetens the crust and helps it brown during baking.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crust on the surface of the ham as it bakes.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the cooking liquid a sharp, tangy flavor.

The step that matters

Simmer until tender enough to remove the skin. Simmering slowly keeps the meat moist and makes it tender. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and make it dry, so the ham should be checked before it is moved to the pan for glazing.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pepper, cider, vinegar, sugar, bread. 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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