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
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
Soak the ham in sweet milk for 1 hour if it is too salty.
Remove the rind from the ham.
Place the ham in an earthen pudding dish.
Sprinkle the ham with sugar, pepper, and flour.
Cover the dish.
Bake
Bake the dish in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 2 hours.
Add the soaking milk unless it has curdled.
If the milk has curdled, use fresh milk instead.
Boil the mixture once.
Serve and vary
Serve the ham in the baking dish or on a deep platter.
For a variation, place sliced tomato on top of the ham.
Dredge the tomato with flour and pepper, then bake the dish.
Add butter if the ham is not very fatty.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Is the main dish, and its salt level is what the milk soak is meant to adjust.
- Sweet milk
- Supplies moisture and forms the liquid that keeps the ham from drying during baking.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the oven.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid so it becomes a smoother sauce.
- Tomato
- Adds acidity and moisture to the optional topping.
The step that matters
Boil the mixture once. Milk proteins can clump and curdle when heated too hard or too long, which is why the record says to use fresh milk if the soaking milk has curdled. Keep the heat gentle so the sauce stays smooth.
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):
- Capsicumfits better
- Potatofits better
- Mustardfits better
- 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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