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Baked Hams

A ham baked with a crumb and mustard topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Hams

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 the ham

  1. Boil the ham until fully cooked; timing depends on the size.

  2. Remove the skin from the ham.

Coat and bake

  1. Mix bread crumbs, sugar, mustard, and enough butter to form a paste.

  2. Spread the mixture on top of the ham, about ¼ inch thick.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until light 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

  4. Bread + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

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

  5. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
The main meat that the crumb crust is spread over and baked.
Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the crust, absorbing butter and holding its shape as a topping.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown as it caramelises in the oven.
Mustard
Adds a sharp tang that balances the sweetness of the sugar and the rich ham.
Butter
Fat that binds the crumbs into a paste and encourages even, golden browning.

The step that matters

Bake until light brown. Sugar and butter brown quickly at oven heat, so the crust can scorch before the surface is evenly coloured. Check the colour closely near the end of baking and stop when it is light brown.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

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