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To Boil a Ham

A large ham is boiled, then coated with brown sugar and baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

To Boil a Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the ham

  1. Fill a ham boiler half full with water.

  2. Place the ham skin side up in the boiler.

  3. Boil the ham for four hours. Add boiling water as needed.

Glaze and bake

  1. Remove the skin while the ham is hot.

  2. Cover the ham with brown sugar.

  3. Bake until light brown, about 30 minutes.

Rest

  1. Do not cut the ham until it is 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Main protein that is cooked through by slow boiling, becoming tender and juicy.
Brown sugar
Caramelizes in the oven to form a browned, sweet, glossy coating on the surface.

The step that matters

Bake until light brown. Sugar caramelizes quickly at oven heat and can scorch before the coating looks evenly browned. Checking the surface during the short bake keeps the glaze golden rather than burnt.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Carrotfits less well
  4. Sweet potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, molasses, pepper, egg, sugar, 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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