Name: Boiled and Baked Ham or Smoked Tongue
Ingredients: 1 ham or smoked tongue; 1 pint vinegar; 1½ cups brown sugar; 1 teaspoon ground cloves; 1 teaspoon allspice; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; water as needed; bread crumbs; powdered sugar

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Boiled and Baked Ham or Smoked Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Soak the ham overnight and boil until tender, testing with a fork.
During the last hour of boiling, drain the water three times.

Glaze and simmer

Add vinegar, brown sugar, cloves, allspice, and cinnamon with enough water to cover the ham.
Boil slowly for one hour, adding more water as needed.

Bake and finish

Transfer the ham to a baking pan and bake for one hour, basting with the boiling liquid.
Remove the skin, pack the fat with bread crumbs and powdered sugar, and brown in the oven.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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: Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long simmering.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the glaze.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the fat surface brown and caramelize.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, browned crust on the fat when packed onto the ham.
Powdered sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the topping brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Browning the packed fat. Sugar and crumbs must brown without burning; the sugar caramelizes at high heat, so watching the ham closely in the oven prevents a bitter, scorched crust.

Swap the allspice

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

Nutmegfits about as well
Allspicethe original
Gingerfits less well
Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, vinegar, sugar, clove, cinnamon, 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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Boiled and Baked Ham or Smoked Tongue