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To Boil a Ham

A ham boiled with water, hay, garlic, cloves, mace, allspice, thyme, pepper, and cider or wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Boil a Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fill a pot with water and add the ham.

  2. Surround the ham with nice hay.

  3. Add garlic, cloves, mace, allspice, thyme, and pepper.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil for several hours until fully cooked.

  2. Add 1 quart of cider or wine before serving.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Garlic + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 being cooked, becoming tender and fully cooked through long simmering.
Cider or wine
Adds acidity and a mild fruity aroma that balances the rich, salty flavor of the ham.
Garlic
Contributes a pungent aroma that mellows and infuses the cooking liquid during long boiling.

The step that matters

Boil for several hours until fully cooked. Ham needs sustained, gentle heat to become tender and safely cooked through. Cooking too briefly leaves the center undercooked, while a hard rolling boil can toughen the meat and make it dry.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, garlic, clove, allspice, thyme, pepper, cider):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, garlic, clove, allspice, thyme, pepper, cider. 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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