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Stewed Ham with Spinach

A dish of stewed ham served over spinach with brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,638 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Stewed Ham with Spinach

Oven, in the book's wordsA medium oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the ham overnight in cold water.

  2. Scrub the ham thoroughly in the morning.

  3. Steam the ham as directed.

  4. Remove the skin from the ham.

Serve

  1. Slice the ham and serve it on a bed of spinach.

  2. Add brown sauce on the sides.

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. Pork + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,638 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Pork + spinachtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,010 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Spinach + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together756 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Ham + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pork + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of pork (ham)
Forms the main body of the dish, with its meat becoming tender through steaming.
Spinach
Provides a fresh, slightly bitter green base that contrasts with the rich meat.
Brown sauce
Adds savoury moisture and richness alongside the sliced ham.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, ham, sauce. 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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