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Baking

To Bake a Ham

A ham is soaked, coated in a flour paste, baked, and the crust removed while hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,516 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

To Bake a Ham

Oven, in the book's wordsA fierce oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a fierce oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Soak the ham in plenty of cold water overnight.

  2. The next day, soak it in warm water for an hour or more.

  3. Wash the ham clean and trim off any rusty parts.

Wrap and bake

  1. Roll coarse flour into a paste about 1 inch thick.

  2. Moisten the edges of the paste and wrap it around the ham, rind side down, sealing it tightly.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 3 hours for a small ham or 5 hours for a large ham.

  4. Remove the crust and skin while the ham is still hot.

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 + flourtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Is the main cooked protein, and its soaking and trimming prepare it for baking.
Coarse flour
Forms a thick paste that encases the ham, sealing in moisture during slow baking.

The step that matters

Sealing the flour paste tightly around the ham. A tight, unbroken paste seal traps moisture and steam so the ham stays juicy during the long bake. Gaps let moisture escape and the meat dries out.

“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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