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Roast Ham

A ham baked in a dough crust and finished with powdered cracker.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Roast Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and bake

  1. Wash the ham well.

  2. Make a thick dough with water and flour.

  3. Cover the ham with the dough and place it in a pan without any water.

  4. Bake for 4 hours.

Finish

  1. Remove from the oven, take off the skin and dough.

  2. Cover the ham with powdered cracker.

  3. Place in the oven for 1 hour.

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
Main protein; the long, gentle baking cooks it through until tender.
Flour
Forms a thick dough that seals the ham and holds in moisture while it bakes.
Powdered cracker
Forms a coating on the surface that crisps and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Sealing the ham with dough. A thick, unbroken dough cover traps moisture so the ham cooks in its own steam. Thin spots or gaps let juices escape, which dries the meat.

“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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