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Boiled Ham

A ham soaked, boiled, and baked with cracker crumbs, egg, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,526 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Boiled Ham

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 overnight.

  2. Cut off the end of the knuckle bone.

  3. Place the ham in cold water.

  4. Cook slowly for five hours.

  5. Remove the skin.

Coat and bake

  1. Cover the ham with cracker crumbs.

  2. Beat the egg.

  3. Brush the egg over the ham.

  4. Stick cloves into the ham in a diamond pattern.

  5. Bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C) until nicely browned.

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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  2. Ham + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  3. Egg + clovetop 35% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

Egg and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,584 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Main cut of meat; long slow cooking in water makes it tender and moist.
Egg
Beaten egg brushed on the surface helps the cracker crumbs stick and encourages browning.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on the outside of the ham as it bakes.
Cloves
Add aromatic, warm spice flavour pressed into the surface of the ham.

The step that matters

Bake until nicely browned. The surface needs enough dry oven heat for the crumbs and egg to brown; the ham is already cooked, so the bake mainly sets the crust and colour, and timing it by colour prevents scorching.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg. 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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