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Ham Baked in Cider

Ham baked in cider with onion, spices, and a flour paste, then browned and served with a cider reduction.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Ham Baked in Cider

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the ham

  1. Wash the ham thoroughly and soak it overnight.

  2. The next morning, wipe the ham dry and sprinkle the flesh side with onion, cinnamon, allspice, mace, and cloves.

  3. Make a paste with flour, roll it out, and cover the flesh side of the ham, pressing it down close to the skin.

  4. Place the ham skin side down in a baking pan.

Bake in cider

  1. Pour 2 quarts of cider into the pan and add white pepper and paprika.

  2. Cover with another pan and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for two hours, basting every twenty minutes.

  3. After two hours, remove the upper pan and bake the ham for an additional two hours.

Brown and serve

  1. When ready to serve, carefully remove the paste and skin.

  2. Trim the bone neatly, brush the skin side with beaten egg, and dust it with bread crumbs and parsley.

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

  4. Skim the fat from the cider and boil it down until you have one pint, then transfer it to a sauce bowl.

  5. Once the ham is browned, garnish the bone with a quill of paper and serve on a bed of cress.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, moist baking in cider.
Cider
Keeps the ham moist and its liquid is reduced later into a flavourful sauce.
Flour
Forms a paste that seals the flesh and shields it from drying out during baking.
Beaten egg
Gives the crumb crust a glossy binding so it adheres and browns during the final bake.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on the skin when browned in the hot oven.

The step that matters

Brown the ham in the hot oven. The ham is already cooked, so the final 400°F step only needs to set and brown the crumb crust. Watching it closely prevents the crumbs and parsley from scorching before the surface turns golden.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, cinnamon, allspice, mace, clove, flour, cider):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, cinnamon, allspice, mace, clove, flour, cider. 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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