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To Boil Ham

A ham boiled and then baked with bread crumbs, brown sugar, pepper, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Ham

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Wash the ham well and soak it overnight in cold water.

Cook

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

  2. Reduce the heat and let it simmer for several hours.

  3. For a better method, use a steamer: lift the ham from the water and steam until perfectly tender.

Glaze and brown

  1. Remove the skin, rub the top with bread crumbs and brown sugar, and dot with pepper and cloves.

  2. Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven to brown.

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

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

  3. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + clovetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,129 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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 slow cooking turns it tender and juicy.
Bread crumbs
Form a crust on the surface that absorbs the glaze and helps it brown.
Brown sugar
Caramelises in the oven, adding sweetness and a browned, glossy finish.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic flavour to the glaze and ham surface.

The step that matters

Simmering without a hard boil. A gentle simmer cooks the ham evenly and keeps the meat tender. A rolling boil toughens the outer proteins and can dry out the surface.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, bread, sugar, pepper. 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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