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Braised Ham

A ham braised with celery, herbs, mace, cloves, and broth, served with Espagnole sauce and spinach garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 616 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Braised Ham

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Braise the ham

  1. Combine celery, fagot, mace, cloves, and enough broth to float the ham in a pot.

  2. Place the ham in the pot.

  3. Set the pot on the stove and braise the ham for 2 hours, ensuring it simmers gently without boiling.

  4. Remove the pot from heat and let the ham cool in the broth to retain moisture.

Finish and glaze

  1. After partially cooling, trim the ham and place it in a braising pan with some of the broth.

  2. Warm the ham in the oven at 350°F (175°C) one hour before serving.

  3. Transfer the ham to a baking dish and dry the surface in the oven.

  4. Glaze the ham.

  5. Return the ham to the oven for 3 minutes.

  6. Glaze again for a bright appearance.

Serve

  1. Serve the ham on a dish, garnished with well dressed spinach and pour Espagnole sauce around the base.

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. Celery + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together616 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

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

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Clove + spinachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Is the main cut that is slowly braised until tender and moist.
Common broth
Gently cooks the ham and keeps it moist while it cools.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavour to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer gently without boiling. A rolling boil toughens the meat fibres and squeezes out moisture, while a gentle simmer lets collagen break down slowly for a tender, juicy ham.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, clove, ham, sauce, spinach):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, clove, ham, sauce, spinach. 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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