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Roast Ham

A ham boiled, then roasted with vinegar, brown sugar, cloves, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Roast Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Boil and prepare

  1. Boil the ham for 3 hours.

  2. Remove from the stove, skin, and trim excess fat.

  3. Arrange whole cloves in a pattern on top of the ham.

Roast and finish

  1. In the stock, combine vinegar and brown sugar.

  2. Place the ham in a covered roasting pan with the mixture.

  3. Roast for about 1 hour or until tender.

  4. Thirty minutes before finishing, uncover the ham.

  5. Sprinkle fine cracker crumbs over the ham and bake until crisp and brown.

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

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

  2. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Ham + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Ham + vinegartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  5. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 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
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender through long, moist cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during the final baking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the brown sugar in the braising liquid.
Fine cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the surface of the ham.

The step that matters

Uncovering the ham thirty minutes before finishing. Covering traps steam so the ham stays moist and tender; uncovering lets the surface dry and brown. Uncovering too early can dry the meat, while waiting too long leaves the crumbs pale and soft.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, vinegar, 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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