Skip to main content
Main

To Roast a Ham

A ham roasted on a spit, soaked, steeped in Madeira or sherry, basted with hot water, served with a wine-based gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and carrot 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 ↓

To Roast a Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the ham in lukewarm water for 1-2 days, changing the water frequently.

  2. The day before cooking, remove the ham from the water.

  3. Trim the ham.

  4. Pour the wine over the ham.

  5. Let the ham steep overnight, washing the wine over it throughout the day.

Roast and brown

  1. Roast the ham on a spit for at least 6 hours, basting continually with hot water.

  2. When done, dredge the ham with fine bread crumbs.

  3. Brown the ham before the fire.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. For gravy, combine the steeping wine with the juices from the ham.

  2. Add lemon juice to the gravy.

  3. Boil the gravy and skim.

  4. Serve the gravy in a boat.

  5. Garnish the shank of the ham with double parsley.

  6. Decorate with flower shapes cut from raw vegetables.

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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Forms the main body of the dish, and its long soak and roast set its texture and flavour.
Madeira or sherry
Steeps into the ham and later forms the base of the gravy, adding aroma and sweetness.
Fine bread crumbs
Coat the surface so it browns in the fire, giving a crisp, golden crust.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity to the gravy, brightening its flavour and balancing the rich wine and meat juices.

The step that matters

Roast on a spit for at least 6 hours, basting continually. A long, slow roast lets heat reach the centre of a large ham while continual basting with hot water keeps the surface from drying out and becoming tough.

“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.

More roasted ham recipes

and Chicken with Gravy 3 See all 16 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes