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Boiled Ham

A ham cooked slowly in water with wine, vinegar, hay, brown sugar, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,493 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Boiled Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the ham in fresh water for 12 hours, changing the water twice.

Simmer

  1. Simmer the ham for 1 hour per pound, never allowing the water to boil.

  2. Add wine, vinegar, and hay to the simmering water.

  3. After cooking, let the ham sit in the water for 12 hours with the skin on.

Glaze and bake

  1. Remove the skin, trim the ham, and rub it with brown sugar.

  2. Stick cloves into the ham and bake slowly until browned, basting with wine or champagne.

  3. Cool the ham rapidly by placing it on ice.

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. Wine + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Wine + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-isoeugenol (clove, spicy).

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 of meat that is cured, cooked, and served.
Dry wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the cooking liquid and the basting.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the cooking liquid, sharpening the flavour of the meat.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during baking.
Hay
Adds a subtle aroma to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer without boiling. At a boil, muscle fibres tighten and toughen and the surface can break apart. Holding the water just below a simmer keeps the ham tender and moist.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, wine, vinegar, sugar. 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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