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Ham and Bacon

A ham cooked with pepper, cloves, elder vinegar, and baked with brown sugar and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove 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 ↓

Ham and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer the ham

  1. Wash the ham and place it in cool water.

  2. Bring the ham to a boil and cook slowly for 30 minutes.

  3. Drain the water and add enough fresh water to cover the ham.

  4. Add the whole pepper and cloves.

  5. Bring the mixture to a slow boil again.

  6. Add the elder vinegar and cook until the skin can be removed.

Glaze and bake

  1. Place the ham in a baking pan.

  2. Cover the ham with brown sugar and fine bread crumbs.

  3. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

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. Pepper + clovetop 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. Pepper + vinegartop 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. Clove + vinegartop 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
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow simmering.
Light brown sugar
Sweetens the crust and helps it brown in the oven.
Fine bread crumbs
Forms a crisp topping that holds the sugar coating on the ham.
Elder vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor of the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Cook until the skin can be removed. Simmering must be slow and gentle, since a hard boil can toughen the meat and split the skin. Check that the skin peels away easily before moving on, because it is the cue that the ham is cooked through.

Swap the clove

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

  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, pepper, vinegar, sugar, bread. 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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