Skip to main content
Main

Ham with Spinach

A boiled ham served with sautéed spinach and a thick gravy, finished with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 870 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Ham with Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and simmer the ham

  1. Scrape or brush the ham clean and remove any disfiguring parts.

  2. Place the ham in a large pot and cover it with cold water.

  3. Bring the water to a boil, skimming off the scum that rises.

  4. Once skimmed, reduce the heat to simmer the ham gently until tender, about 3-5 hours depending on size.

  5. Add herbs and carrots after skimming for added flavor.

Finish the ham

  1. When tender, remove the ham, strip off the skin, and place it in a preheated oven for a few minutes.

  2. Sprinkle fine bread crumbs or grated crust over the ham before serving.

Prepare the spinach

  1. For the spinach, boil it, then squeeze and chop it well.

  2. Stir the spinach over moderate heat until very dry, adding thick gravy to flavor.

  3. Press the spinach into molds and serve quickly with the ham.

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. Carrot + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together870 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

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

  3. Bread + spinachtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Carrot + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Ham + carrottop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Spinach
Forms the vegetable side, pressed into molds to hold its shape once dried.
Thick rich gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the spinach as it is stirred.
Fine bread crumbs
Sprinkled over the ham to add a light, crisp texture on the surface.

The step that matters

Stirring the spinach until very dry. Spinach is mostly water. If it stays wet, it will not hold its shape in the molds and the gravy will thin it out. Drying it over moderate heat concentrates its flavour and lets it set firm.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, carrot, 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes