Why it works: Ham and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,526 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Boiled and Baked 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
Boil the ham until tender.
Cover the ham with the white of a raw egg.
Sprinkle sugar or bread crumbs over the ham.
Bake and serve
Place the ham in a 400°F (200°C) oven and brown it.
For a variation, cover with cake icing and brown.
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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Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,526 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,084 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Ham
- Main cooked meat, made tender by boiling before the final browning in the oven.
- Raw egg white
- Binds the sugar or crumbs to the surface so they stay in place while browning.
- Sugar or bread crumbs
- Forms a crust that browns in the oven, adding sweetness and texture to the surface.
The step that matters
Browning the ham in the oven. Sugar and proteins brown and caramelise only at high dry heat. The coating can burn if left too long, so watch it closely while it browns.
“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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