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To Boil a Ham

A ham boiled until tender, then baked with bread crumbs, cloves, pepper, and a vinegar-sugar glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Boil a 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 the ham

  1. Boil the ham until tender.

  2. Remove the skin and some fat from the ham.

  3. Cover the ham with a heavy layer of bread crumbs.

  4. Insert whole cloves and dots of black pepper into the ham.

Bake and baste

  1. Baste the ham with vinegar, a little water, and sugar, gradually.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about an hour.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the main body of the dish, which is cooked until tender by boiling first.
Bread crumbs
Form a heavy crust layer that browns and crisps in the oven.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the basting liquid, sharpening the flavour of the glaze.
Sugar
Sweetens the basting liquid and helps the surface brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Basting gradually. Sugar in the basting liquid can scorch if the surface dries out or the glaze is applied too heavily at once. Adding it gradually builds an even, browned layer while keeping the ham moist.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

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