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Ham, Boiled and Baked

A ham boiled and baked with a crumbed bread topping.

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 ↓

Ham, Boiled and Baked

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 the ham

  1. Soak the ham in cold water for 5-6 hours if it's old.

  2. Boil the ham for about 4 hours if it's young, or 2.5 hours if it's a year old.

  3. Skim off any froth that rises to the top of the pot.

Bake and serve

  1. After boiling, remove the ham, take off the skin, and place it in a baking dish.

  2. Add about 1 quart of water to the dish.

  3. Sprinkle the ham with flour and black pepper.

  4. Moisten the crumbled bread with some of the boiling water and cover the ham with it.

  5. Bake the ham in a 350°F (175°C) oven until tender.

  6. Serve cold.

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. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

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

  5. Bread + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Bread and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,383 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 dish, cooked gently by boiling and then baking until tender.
Stale rolls or loaf bread
Crumbled and moistened, it forms a crust-like topping that holds moisture during baking.
Flour
Dusted over the ham, it helps the surface brown and form a light crust.
Black pepper
Sprinkled on the ham to add a mild, sharp aroma and flavour to the crust.

The step that matters

Skim off the froth while boiling. Froth rises from proteins and impurities released during boiling. Removing it keeps the broth clear and stops scum from settling back onto the ham.

“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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