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Boiled Ham

A ham cooked in boiling water with sugar, then baked or reheated until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Boiled Ham

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the borax or soda in lukewarm water and scrub the ham until clean.

Cook the ham

  1. Place the ham in a kettle of boiling water and add the sugar.

  2. Remove the scum when it begins to boil and reduce the heat to a gentle simmer.

  3. Cook the ham for 3 to 4 hours until very tender.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool in the cooking liquid.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooled, remove the skin and dredge with fine crumbs or light brown sugar.

  2. Stick cloves into the ham about an inch apart.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until brown and crispy, or reheat on the stove until boiling.

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

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

  2. Bread + clovetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,129 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Ham + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + breadtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,638 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Is the main meat that becomes tender and juicy during long, gentle simmering.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the cooking liquid and helps the surface brown when baked.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after the scum is removed. A rolling boil toughens meat proteins and can make the ham dry and stringy. A gentle simmer lets the connective tissue soften slowly, leaving the ham tender.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sugar, bread. 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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