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Boiled Ham

A large ham is boiled and baked, optionally with cloves, to produce a tender, flavorful meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,666 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓

Boiled Ham

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the ham

  1. Pour boiling water over the ham and let it stand until cool enough to wash.

  2. Scrape the ham clean and place it in a pot with enough cold water to cover it.

Simmer

  1. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 6 to 7 hours, or until tender when pierced with a fork.

  2. Turn the ham once or twice during cooking to ensure even heating.

Skin and bake

  1. Once done, place the ham in a baking pan to skin it.

  2. Dip your hands in cold water, then peel the skin off the ham as you would an orange.

  3. Place the ham in a 350°F (175°C) oven, lean side down, and optionally stick a few cloves into the top.

  4. Bake for 1 hour to render fat and enhance flavor.

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the main meat, whose fat renders and flavors the dish during the long cook and bake.

The step that matters

Simmering until tender. Ham is cooked long at a gentle simmer so connective tissue breaks down slowly and the meat becomes tender. A hard boil can toughen the meat and make the outside dry or stringy, so keep the water just below a rolling boil.

“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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