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Fresh Ham

A ham stuffed with a bread crumb mixture, baked and served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fresh 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 the stuffing

  1. Slice off a portion of the ham for frying and keep it in the refrigerator until needed.

  2. In a bowl, combine stale bread crumbs with enough boiling water to form a pliable paste.

  3. Stir in thyme, salt, black pepper, red pepper, and butter. Mix well to form a stuffing.

  4. Stuff the ham with the mixture and dredge it thoroughly with flour. Season with additional pepper.

Bake the ham

  1. Place the ham on a meat rack in a dripping pan. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Bake for 1 hour, then pour 1 cup of boiling water into the pan and reduce the oven temperature to 350°F (175°C).

  3. Continue baking for 3 hours. If the ham is not browned, increase the heat for an additional 15 minutes.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. For the gravy, blend 1 tablespoon of flour with 2 tablespoons of cold water, then add 1 cup of boiling water.

  2. Pour the mixture into the dripping pan, season with salt, bring to a boil, skim off the fat, and serve in a gravy boat.

  3. For leftovers, serve the ham sliced cold with hot gravy.

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. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Thyme + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Stale bread crumbs
Absorb the boiling water to form a pliable paste that gives the stuffing body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing, improving moisture and flavour.
Flour
Dredging coat that helps the outside brown, and thickens the gravy when blended with water.
Dried thyme
Contributes aroma and savoury herbal flavour to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Reducing the oven temperature after the first hour. Starting hot browns the outside and sets the flour coat, while the lower heat for the long bake lets the ham cook through without drying or scorching the surface.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, flour. 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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