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Roast Ham with Madeira Sauce

A roasted ham served with Madeira sauce and vegetable garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Roast Ham with Madeira Sauce

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. Choose a ham by cutting close to the bone; if it smells sweet, it's good.

  2. Soak the ham in cold water for 24 hours, changing the water once.

  3. Scrape the ham and trim any ragged parts.

Cook the ham

  1. Place the ham in enough cold water to cover, add the onion, and boil for 4 hours.

  2. Remove the ham from heat and let it cool in the pot liquid.

Brown and serve

  1. Carefully take the ham out, remove the skin, coat it with bread or cracker crumbs, and brown it in the oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Serve the ham hot or cold with Madeira sauce and a vegetable garnish.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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, cooked gently in water until tender throughout.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Coat the surface, helping it brown and crisp in the oven.
Onion
Studded with cloves and boiled in the water, adding aromatic flavor to the ham.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and a rich, fortified aroma to the sauce.
Rich brown gravy
Forms the base of the sauce, giving body and savory depth.

The step that matters

Carefully take the ham out, remove the skin, coat it with bread or cracker crumbs, and brown it in the oven. The ham is soft after long simmering and can tear or fall apart when handled. Crumbs need a dry surface to brown and crisp, so the skin must be removed cleanly before baking.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, clove, madeira wine, carrot, turnip, pepper, bread):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, clove, madeira wine, carrot, turnip, pepper, bread. 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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