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Baked Cornfield Ham

A ham baked in water and syrup, then coated with sugar and cracker crumbs, clove-studded, and browned with ginger ale.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked Cornfield Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Select a Cornfield Brand ham and soak it overnight in cold water.

  2. Scrub the ham with a stiff brush before cooking.

Bake

  1. Bake the ham in a covered roaster with 3 inches of water mixed with syrup for 3 to 3½ hours.

Glaze and brown

  1. Remove the skin and roll the ham in a mixture of sugar and cracker crumbs.

  2. Stick whole cloves into the ham and place it in the oven to brown.

  3. Baste the ham with ginger ale while it browns.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Syrup + gingertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
The main cut that is cooked slowly in liquid and then browned on the surface.
Sugar
Caramelizes on the surface during browning, adding sweetness and a golden color.
Cracker crumbs
Form a coating on the surface that helps the sugar mixture cling to the ham.
Syrup
Adds sweetness and helps the surface darken as it cooks.
Ginger ale
Its sugars and liquid add flavor and moisture to the surface while it browns.

The step that matters

Brown the glazed ham. Sugars caramelize and can scorch quickly in a hot oven, so the surface can turn bitter or burnt before the ham is evenly colored. Watching the browning closely and basting helps the glaze color evenly.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sugar, syrup, ginger. 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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