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 ↓
Boiled Ham
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wipe the ham with a coarse cloth.
Soak the ham in cold water for 1 hour to extract some salt.
Boil
Cover the ham with cold water and bring it to a boil over medium heat.
Maintain a steady boil and cook for 20 minutes per pound of meat.
Serve
If serving hot, remove the skin, place the ham on a platter with the fat side up, and stick in whole cloves.
If serving cold, leave the ham in the kettle until the cooking water cools to keep it juicy.
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).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Ham
- Provides the main meat, whose fat and connective tissue keep the cooked slices moist and flavorful.
- Whole cloves
- Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavor to the fat surface when stuck into the hot ham.
The step that matters
Maintain a steady boil. Boiling too hard toughens and dries the meat's proteins and can make the outside ragged, while letting the water go cold stalls cooking. A gentle, steady simmer cooks the ham evenly and keeps it tender and juicy.
“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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