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Baked Ham

A ham cooked by soaking, boiling with vinegar and herbs, then roasting with bread crust and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Baked 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.

Prepare

  1. Soak the ham in cold water for 12 to 24 hours.

  2. Cover the ham with boiling water, add vinegar, bay leaves, thyme, and parsley.

  3. Boil slowly for 2.5 hours, then remove and skim the liquid.

  4. Leave a ½ inch layer of fat on the ham and trim off any blackened parts.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the ham in a roasting pan, fat side up, and grate bread crust over it.

  2. Sprinkle powdered sugar on top and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes until browned.

  3. Serve cold, slicing the best parts and using scraps for sandwiches or an omelet.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

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, which is cooked gently by simmering and then finished with dry heat.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity to the simmering liquid that helps flavour the meat.
Bread crust
Grated over the fat, it toasts in the oven to form a crisp, golden crust.
Powdered sugar
Sprinkled on top, it caramelises in the oven to add browning and sweetness.

The step that matters

Trimming the fat and blackened parts. Leaving a thin fat layer keeps the surface moist during baking, while removing blackened areas avoids bitter, burnt flavour in the finished crust.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

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