Why it works: Ham and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,666 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓
To Boil a Ham
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Boil
Boil the ham for 3 to 4 hours, depending on its size.
Remove the ham from the pot and skin it.
Glaze and bake
Stick 12 cloves into the ham.
Rub ½ cup of sugar over the ham.
Sprinkle the ham thoroughly with pounded rusk or cracker crumbs.
Place the ham in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.
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.
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Ham + clovetop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,666 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
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Clove + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together17,182 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,084 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Clove and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 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
- Is the main cut, cooked through by boiling and then finished with dry heat.
- Sugar
- Caramelizes in the oven, adding sweetness and a browned surface.
- Rusk or cracker crumbs
- Coat the surface and help form a crisp, browned crust in the oven.
The step that matters
Rubbing the sugar and sprinkling the crumbs over the ham. Sugar and crumbs need to coat the surface evenly so the crust browns uniformly instead of in patches. Uneven coverage leads to burnt spots and bare areas.
Swap the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Clovethe original
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Allspicefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sugar. 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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