Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Ham

A ham boiled for several hours, then baked with bread crumbs and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Boiled Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Scrub the ham well with a brush.

Boil and cool

  1. Place the ham in cold water and boil for 3 to 5 hours, depending on size.

  2. Once cooked, remove the ham from boiling water and plunge it into cold water.

Trim and brown

  1. Carefully remove the skin and trim the underside of the ham.

  2. Place the ham in a dripping pan, cover with grated bread crumbs and chopped lemon, and set it in the oven to brown.

  3. Trim the bone with cut tissue paper.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  2. Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Ham + lemontop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,788 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 that is simmered until cooked through and tender.
Grated bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the surface in the oven.
Chopped lemon
Adds a bright, acidic aroma that complements the savory meat.

The step that matters

Boiling the ham for the full time. Ham is simmered for a long period so heat penetrates the thick joint and it becomes fully cooked and tender. Timing depends on size, so stopping early can leave the centre undercooked, while cooking too hard can toughen the outer meat.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Red currantfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, 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.

More boiled ham recipes

Cold 4 See all 328 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes