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Baked Ham

A ham covered with a stiff paste of flour and water or bread dough, baked until cooked.

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 ↓

Baked Ham

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Trim the ham as desired for slicing and place it in a baking pan.

  2. Make a stiff paste of flour and water or use bread dough, about 1½ inches thick, and cover the top of the ham entirely.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the pan and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. When ready to serve, remove the bread cover and slice the ham.

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 cut being cooked, and it stays moist inside the sealed paste covering.
Flour
Forms a stiff paste that seals the top of the ham during baking.
Water
Combines with flour to make the stiff paste that forms the protective cover.

The step that matters

Covering the ham completely with the paste. Any gaps in the flour and water crust or bread dough let moisture escape during the long bake, which can dry the exposed meat. A thick, unbroken cover traps steam and keeps the ham 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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