Name: Milk Baked Ham
Ingredients: 1 thick slice raw ham; 1 teaspoon mustard; 1 tablespoon sugar; 1 cup milk

Why it works: Ham and mustard work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 747 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Milk Baked Ham

Ingredients

1 thick slice raw ham
1 teaspoon mustard
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup milk

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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Mix the sugar and mustard together thoroughly.
Rub the mixture well into the ham.
Place the ham in a deep pie dish.

Bake

Cover the ham with milk.
Bake for 1 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.

Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together747 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Mustard + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,424 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ham + milktop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,089 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Mustard + milktop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,658 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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: Provides the meat that becomes tender and savoury as it bakes gently in milk.
Milk: Surrounds the ham as a moist liquid, keeping the meat from drying out in the oven.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the surface of the ham brown slightly as it bakes.
Mustard: Adds sharp, tangy flavour that balances the sweetness and richness of the ham.