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Boiled Ham

A large ham is boiled, then topped with grated bread crust and powdered sugar, baked until browned, served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

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

  2. Cover the ham with boiling water.

  3. Add vinegar, bay leaves, thyme, and parsley.

  4. Boil the ham slowly for 2.5 hours.

Trim and glaze

  1. Remove the ham.

  2. Skim off the fat, leaving a ½ inch layer of fat.

  3. Cut off any blackened parts.

  4. Place the ham in a dripping pan, fat side up.

  5. Grate bread crust over the ham, then sprinkle with powdered sugar.

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

Serve

  1. Serve cold, slicing the best parts.

  2. Use scraps for sandwiches or mix with eggs for an omelet.

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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

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

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, which the long soak and slow boil make tender and moist.
Vinegar
Adds a mild acidity that helps flavour the liquid and the meat during boiling.
Bread crust
Crumbs toasted in the oven form a crisp, browned topping over the fat.
Powdered sugar
Sweetness that helps the surface brown in the oven.
Eggs
Set when cooked and bind the leftover ham into an omelet.

The step that matters

Boil the ham slowly. A slow, gentle simmer cooks the meat evenly and keeps it tender; a rolling boil toughens the outer layers and can make the meat dry and stringy.

Swap the thyme

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

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

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