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Ham with Madiera

Ham braised with Madeira wine, onions, carrots, bay leaves, parsley, cloves, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Ham with Madiera

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Place the ham in a pot and cover it with water.

  2. Heat gradually until the water is scalding hot.

  3. Drain the water.

  4. Scrape the ham clean and wash the ham well.

Simmer

  1. Return the ham to the pot with 2 quarts of cold water, onion, and carrot.

  2. Bring the contents to a boil over moderate heat.

  3. Add bay leaves, parsley, cloves, and Madeira.

  4. Simmer for 3 hours.

  5. Drain the liquid.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove all fat.

  2. Thicken some of the liquid for gravy.

  3. Trim the skin from the ham.

  4. Decorate the bone with a ruffle.

  5. Serve.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Is the main cooked meat; slow simmering makes it tender and succulent.
Madeira
Adds sweet, rich aroma and depth of flavour to the cooking liquid and gravy.
Onion
Adds savoury aromatic flavour to the simmering liquid.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aromatic flavour to the simmering liquid.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour to the ham and its liquid.

The step that matters

Heat gradually until the water is scalding hot. Slow heating of the initial soak helps draw out excess salt and impurities gently; rapid boiling can toughen the meat's outer proteins and make the ham less tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, carrot, parsley, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, carrot, parsley, clove. 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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