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Boiled Ham

A ham simmered with vinegar, water, celery, turnips, onions, and sweet herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and turnip are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,418 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Boiled Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the ham in vinegar and water.

  2. Place the ham in a pot with cold water.

Cook

  1. Add celery, turnips, onions (if using), and sweet herbs.

  2. Heat the water gradually.

  3. Boil for 1 hour for every 4 pounds of ham.

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. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + celerytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,627 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 protein, cooked slowly in liquid until tender.
Vinegar
Soaking in acidic liquid helps the ham stay moist and mild during cooking.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavour to the cooking liquid as it simmers.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Heat the water gradually. Bringing the pot up to temperature slowly lets the ham heat evenly and keeps the meat from toughening. Starting from cold water and rising gently helps the muscle fibres relax rather than seize.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, vinegar, celery, turnip):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, vinegar, celery, turnip. 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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