Name: Baked Ham, Southern Style
Ingredients: 1 ham; ½ cup brown sugar; 1 cup cracker crumbs; ¼ teaspoon pepper

Why it works: Ham and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,058 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Baked Ham, Southern Style

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

1 ham
½ cup brown sugar
1 cup cracker crumbs
¼ teaspoon pepper

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the ham

Boil the ham for 2 hours.
Remove the rind.
Score the fat into dice.

Glaze and bake

Mix the brown sugar, cracker crumbs, and pepper.
Rub the mixture into the ham.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours longer.

Serve

Serve with Cumberland sauce.

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.

Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,058 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,401 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,084 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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: Main cut of meat that is cooked through and carries the glaze.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the glaze caramelize and brown in the oven.
Cracker crumbs: Bind the glaze to the ham's surface and add a toasted, crisp crust.

“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.