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Boiled Ham

A ham boiled with vinegar, bay leaves, thyme, and parsley, then topped with bread crust and powdered sugar and baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Boiled 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 ham

  1. Soak the ham in cold water for 12 to 24 hours.

Boil

  1. Cover the ham with boiling water, add vinegar, bay leaves, thyme, and parsley.

  2. Boil slowly for 2.5 hours.

Glaze and bake

  1. Remove the ham, skim the surface, and leave a ½ inch layer of fat.

  2. Cut off any blackened parts.

  3. Place the ham in a roasting pan, fat side up.

  4. Grate bread crust over the ham and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes until browned.

Serve

  1. Serve cold, slicing the best portions; chop ragged parts for sandwiches.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Is the main cut of meat that is cooked, sliced and served.
Vinegar
Adds a mild acidity to the cooking liquid, which helps brighten the flavour of the ham.
Bread crust
Grated over the surface, it adds a toasted crumb layer that browns during baking.
Powdered sugar
Helps the surface brown more evenly and adds a touch of sweetness to the crust.

The step that matters

Bake until browned. Sugar and bread crumbs brown quickly at 400°F, so the surface can scorch before the glaze is evenly coloured. Watch the ham closely during the final 30 minutes.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, vinegar, parsley, bread, sugar):

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, vinegar, parsley, bread, sugar. 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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