Name: To Boil Ham or Bacon
Ingredients: 1 ham or bacon; water; whole cloves; black pepper

Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Boil Ham or Bacon

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

1 ham or bacon
water
whole cloves
black pepper

Directions

Prepare

Soak the ham or bacon in cold water.
Place it over the fire and bring to a boil.

Finish

Once cooked, remove the skin.
Stick whole cloves into the surface and sprinkle black pepper in spots.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Ham + clovetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,666 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,058 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ham or bacon: The main meat, which is cooked whole and provides the dish's body and flavor.
Whole cloves: Stuck into the surface to add a warm, aromatic spice flavor.
Black pepper: Sprinkled over the surface to add a sharp, aromatic seasoning.