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Boiled Ham

A ham boiled, then baked with brown sugar, wine or water, cloves, egg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Boiled Ham

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Boil the ham

  1. Boil the ham in a porcelain-lined kettle, covered with water, until a fork can be easily inserted.

  2. Remove from heat and peel the skin off.

Glaze and bake

  1. Place the ham in a pan with the fat side up.

  2. Score the fat deeply until reaching the lean part, then fill the openings with brown sugar moistened with wine or water.

  3. Stick whole cloves over the surface.

  4. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 30 minutes.

Store

  1. Once cooled, store in a crock and cover tightly.

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

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

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Wine + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-isoeugenol (clove, spicy).

  4. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  5. Clove + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,129 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

Brown sugar
Melts into the scored fat to add sweetness and help the surface brown.
Wine or water
Moistens the brown sugar so it packs into the scored openings and dissolves evenly.
Whole cloves
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the glazed surface.

The step that matters

Scoring the fat to the lean part. Cutting deeply enough lets the sugar mixture reach the lean meat and flavour it. Shallow scores leave the glaze sitting on the fat and running off during baking.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sugar, wine, egg, 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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