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Baked Ham

A ham baked with a spice rub and flour paste, simmered in cider.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the ham

  1. Wash the ham with soda bicarbonate and brush with cold water.

  2. Soak the ham overnight in cold water.

Season and seal

  1. Place the ham in a baking tin, skin side down.

  2. In a bowl, mix pepper, clove, cinnamon, and celery seed.

  3. Rub the mixture thoroughly into the meat and sprinkle with chopped onion.

  4. Make a paste of flour and water, roll it thin, and spread it over the top of the ham.

  5. Tuck the paste closely to the skin.

Bake and finish

  1. Fill the pan two-thirds full with cider and bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 4 hours.

  2. When done, remove the skin and paste.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,009 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
The main cut of meat, cooked slowly until tender through the centre.
Flour
Forms a paste crust that covers the ham and helps trap moisture during baking.
Cider
Liquid in the pan that adds moisture and a mild acidity to the cooking meat.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma and flavour to the meat's surface.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and flavour as it cooks against the ham.

The step that matters

Tuck the paste closely to the skin. A tight seal keeps the ham from drying out during the long bake, since the paste traps steam and juices against the meat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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