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Delicious Boiled Ham

A ham boiled for several hours, then cooled, skinned, coated with bread crumbs, brown sugar, cloves, and browned in the oven.

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 ↓

Delicious Boiled Ham

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Soak and prepare

  1. Soak the ham overnight in cold water.

  2. In the morning, scrape and wipe the ham well.

  3. Place the ham in a kettle and cover it with sufficient water.

Boil and cool

  1. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce the heat to maintain a gentle boil.

  2. Boil the ham for 4 to 5 hours.

  3. Remove the kettle from the stove and let the ham cool in the water for 2 hours.

  4. Once cool, remove the skin from the ham.

Glaze and brown

  1. Sprinkle a layer of bread crumbs over the entire surface.

  2. Dot the ham attractively with brown sugar and cloves.

  3. Place the ham in a 350°F (175°C) oven to brown.

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. Clove + breadtop 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 cut that is cooked slowly until tender and fully cooked through.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface caramelize and brown in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a layer on the surface that adds texture and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Maintaining a gentle boil. A rolling boil toughens the meat and can break up its surface, while a gentle simmer cooks it evenly and keeps it tender and moist.

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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