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Boiled Ham

A ham is boiled with cloves and cinnamon after cleaning and soaking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Boiled Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Brush the ham thoroughly to remove dust and mold.

  2. Soak the ham in cold water for 1 hour.

  3. Cut off the hardened surface and butt of the ham.

  4. Before boiling, stick the ham with whole cloves and bits of cinnamon.

Boil

  1. Place the ham in a pot with cold water and bring to a boil.

  2. Maintain a steady boil for 1 hour.

  3. Change the water and continue boiling until done, about 4 hours total for a 12-pound ham.

Finish

  1. Remove the skin and leave the ham in the water until cold.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Ham + cinnamontop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together66 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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 being cooked, so its size sets the overall cooking time.
Whole cloves
Add a pungent, aromatic flavour that penetrates the surface of the ham.
Bits of cinnamon
Add a warm, sweet aroma that complements the cloves.

The step that matters

Changing the water during the long boil. Replacing the first cooking water after an hour removes the salty, impure liquid drawn from the ham and gives a cleaner-flavoured result. Keeping the water at a steady simmer rather than a hard rolling boil helps the meat stay tender and prevents it from toughening.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, clove. 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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