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Baked Ham

A ham coated in a thick flour and water paste and baked until the crust is removed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,516 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Baked Ham

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Scrape and wash the whole ham.

  2. Make a thick paste of flour and water, then spread the paste thickly all over the ham.

  3. Place the ham in a pan with the rind downwards.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 2 hours if the ham weighs up to 8 pounds, or 3 hours if it weighs 12 pounds.

Finish

  1. Remove the ham from the pan; the meat will tear from the rind.

  2. Remove the brown flour crust.

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 + flourtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole ham
Provides the meat that is slowly heated through during baking.
Flour
Forms a thick crust that shields the meat in the oven and then browns.

The step that matters

Choose the bake time by the ham's weight. A larger ham needs longer to heat through, so the time must match its weight. Underbaking leaves the centre cold, while the flour crust helps keep the meat moist during baking.

“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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