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Westphalian Ham, Boiled Delicately

A ham boiled with wine and herbs, then cooled and garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Westphalian Ham, Boiled Delicately

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the ham in lukewarm water overnight.

  2. Place the ham in a kettle and cover with about 9 inches of water.

  3. Add the wine, rosemary, sage, thyme, basil, marjoram, whole pepper, juniper berries, and whole onions.

Boil and bind

  1. Boil for 4 hours.

  2. To prevent the ham from falling apart, bind it in a clean cloth.

  3. Once tender, remove the ham from the kettle using the cloth.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the rind and place the ham on a dish, garnishing it with the rind.

  2. When cold, transfer the ham to a clean dish and arrange parsley around it.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Sage + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Rosemary + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1,8-cineol (eucalyptus, camphor).

  4. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  5. Rosemary + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the cooking liquid, flavouring the meat as it simmers.
Juniper berries
Contribute a resinous, aromatic flavour that permeates the ham during boiling.

The step that matters

Bind the ham in a clean cloth before boiling. Long simmering softens the meat and connective tissue, so without a cloth binding the ham can fall apart. Binding holds its shape so it can be lifted out whole once tender.

Swap the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, wine, rosemary, sage, thyme, marjoram, pepper):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Oreganofits about as well
  3. Basilthe original
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, wine, rosemary, sage, thyme, marjoram, pepper. 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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