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Baked Ham, German Style

A ham baked with a sage, cloves, cinnamon, pepper, onion, and flour‑water paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Baked Ham, German Style

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 overnight in cold water.

  2. Remove the skin from the ham.

  3. Mix the sage, cloves, cinnamon, and pepper together.

  4. Rub the spice mixture into the meat and sprinkle with chopped onion.

Bake and serve

  1. Make a paste with flour and water, then spread it over the ham.

  2. Bake the ham at 400°F (200°C) for four hours, basting occasionally.

  3. Remove the paste before serving.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Sage + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Sage + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together140 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 carries all the flavour and moisture.
Flour
Forms the paste that covers the ham while it bakes.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour to the meat as it cooks.

The step that matters

Make a paste with flour and water, then spread it over the ham.. The flour and water paste forms a protective coating that shields the meat from drying out during the long bake. It must cover the ham fully to be effective.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, sage, clove, cinnamon, pepper, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sage, clove, cinnamon, pepper, flour. 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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