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Roasted Ham

A ham soaked, marinated, and roasted with onions, parsley, bay leaves, and white wine, finished with bread crumbs and a jelly glaze.

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

Roasted Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the ham in cold water overnight.

  2. Trim the ham and remove the bone with a knife.

  3. Tie a broad tape around the ham to keep its shape.

  4. Place the ham in a large pan with onions, parsley, bay leaves, and white wine. Cover and let it marinate for 24 hours.

Roast and glaze

  1. Roast the ham, basting it with the marinate for 4-5 hours.

  2. Remove the skin and sprinkle the ham with grated bread crumbs before it's done.

  3. Simmer the bone and trimmings until they form a jelly, then strain it.

  4. After roasting, remove the tape and glaze the ham with the jelly using a brush.

  5. Serve with the marinate underneath.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 carries the flavour of the marinade and glaze.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the marinade, helping to flavour the meat.
Grated bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the surface during roasting.
Boiled potatoes, finely grated
Add body and help bind the surface coating.
Sliced onions
Add aroma and savoury sweetness to the marinade.

The step that matters

Basting during the long roast. Four to five hours of roasting can dry the outside of the ham. Regular basting with the marinade keeps the surface moist and builds flavour, while the fat and sugars in the liquid help the exterior brown.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, parsley, white wine, bread, potato, carrot):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Parsnipfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, parsley, white wine, bread, potato, carrot. 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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