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Westphalia Ham, Roasted a LA St. James

A roasted Westphalia ham flavored with mirepoix, brandy or Malaga wine, wrapped in cartridge paper and venison paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and venison work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Westphalia Ham, Roasted a LA St. James

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

  1. Prepare the Westphalia ham according to previous directions and steep it in mirepoix for the allotted time.

  2. Run a large iron skewer through the ham and secure it with string to a spit.

  3. Cover the underside of the ham with reduced mirepoix and wrap the ham in oiled cartridge paper.

  4. Cover the paper with venison paste and tie it with greased paper and string.

Roast and finish

  1. Roast the ham in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about five hours.

  2. After three and a half hours, infuse the ham with ½ pint of brandy or Malaga wine through a hole in the paste, then seal it.

  3. Roast for an additional 20 minutes, then carefully remove from the spit.

  4. Trim the ham and dry it on a baking sheet in the oven, glaze it, and serve with the reserved essence for flavor.

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. Ham + venisontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85 recipes

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

  2. Brandy + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,181 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Venison + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together667 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Ham + brandytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Brandy + venisontop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Westphalia ham
Is the main cut of meat that is slowly roasted and flavored throughout.
Brandy or malaga wine
Adds aromatic flavor and sweetness when infused into the ham late in roasting.
Mirepoix
Vegetables that flavor the ham during steeping and underneath it while roasting.

The step that matters

Infusing the brandy or Malaga wine. Adding liquid through a hole in the crust late in roasting means the paste must be resealed quickly, so the heat stays in and the wine stays in the meat rather than leaking out and burning.

“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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