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Baked Smoked Ham

A ham baked with milk, sugar, pepper, and flour, optionally topped with tomato.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Baked Smoked Ham

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

  1. Soak the ham in sweet milk for 1 hour if it's too salty.

  2. Cut off the rind.

  3. Place the ham in an earthen pudding dish.

  4. Sprinkle sugar, pepper, and flour over the ham.

  5. Cover the dish.

Bake the ham

  1. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 2 hours.

  2. If the milk has not curdled, add it to the dish.

  3. Otherwise, use fresh milk.

  4. Boil the mixture once.

Finish and serve

  1. Serve in the baking dish or on a deep platter.

  2. Place sliced tomato on top of the ham.

  3. Dredge tomato with flour and pepper, then bake.

  4. Add butter if the ham is not very fatty.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter 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

Ham
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the smoky flavor.
Sweet milk
Soaks out excess salt and provides moisture during the slow baking.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during baking.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid and helps form a light coating on the ham.
Tomato
Adds acidity and moisture to the top of the ham.

The step that matters

Check whether the milk has curdled before adding it. Milk that has curdled separates into solids and liquid, which makes the sauce grainy. Using fresh milk in that case keeps the mixture smooth and cohesive.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, milk, sugar, pepper, flour, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, milk, sugar, pepper, flour, butter. 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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