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Baked Ham — to Be Served Eithek Hot or Cold

A ham coated in a butter and flour paste, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Baked Ham — to Be Served Eithek Hot or Cold

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the smoked bacon-ham in tepid water for 1 hour.

  2. Scrape and wash the ham well, then simmer it in tepid water for another hour.

Coat and bake

  1. Remove the ham, wipe it dry, and cover it with a paste made from ½ cup butter and 1 pound flour.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 2 hours.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Ham + flourtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Smoked bacon-ham
The main joint of meat, which is soaked and simmered before it is baked.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture to the paste, helping keep the surface of the ham from drying out.
Flour
Mixed with butter to form a paste that forms a crust sealing in moisture during baking.

The step that matters

Wipe the ham dry before coating it. Surface water stops the flour and butter paste from clinging evenly, so gaps can form and the paste will not seal the meat well during baking.

“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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