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Braised Ham a LA Cintra

Braised ham with onions, carrots, celery, herbs, and rice, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Braised Ham a LA Cintra

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.

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the ham for 12 hours, then scrape it clean and trim it.

  2. Place the ham in a braising pan with chopped onions, carrots, and celery.

  3. Add bay leaves, sweet herbs, seasoning, and cover with cold water.

  4. Bring to a boil, then braise in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for 5 hours.

Make the rice

  1. Finely chop 1 onion and a piece of celery.

  2. Sauté the chopped onion and celery in 4 ounces of butter for 15 minutes.

  3. Add 1 pint of the ham braising liquid (fat removed), 1 pint of water, and 1 pound of washed rice.

  4. Simmer until the rice is tender.

  5. Stir in the tomato sauce and preserved peas.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the ham from the braise.

  2. Trim off the rind and excess fat.

  3. Cover the ham with breadcrumbs.

  4. Place the ham on a hot dish.

  5. Garnish with rice.

  6. Serve 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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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, which becomes tender and flavourful through long, slow braising.
Rice
Absorbs the braising liquid and butter, becoming soft and moist as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour from the sautéed onion and celery.
Onions
Release sweetness and savoury depth into the braising liquid as they cook.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity and colour to the rice, balancing its richness.

The step that matters

Simmer until the rice is tender. Rice must absorb the liquid slowly over gentle heat; too much heat or stirring can leave it scorched on the bottom or gummy and unevenly cooked.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, carrot, celery, parsley, rice, butter, tomato):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, carrot, celery, parsley, rice, butter, tomato. 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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