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Boiled Ham

A ham boiled in water, optionally topped with crackers, egg white, sugar, breadcrumbs, onions, spices, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Boiled 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. Pour boiling water over the ham.

  2. Let it cool enough to wash and scrape clean.

  3. Place the ham in a large pot with enough cold water to cover it.

Simmer

  1. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer for 6-7 hours until tender.

  2. Turn the ham once or twice during cooking to keep it moist.

Skin and bake

  1. Remove the ham and place it in a baking pan to skin it.

  2. Dip your hands in cold water and peel the skin off like an orange.

  3. Set the ham in a 350°F (175°C) oven with the lean side down.

  4. If desired, sift pounded or rolled crackers over the ham and bake 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
The main cut, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering in water.
Pounded or rolled crackers
Forms a crisp, browned crust on the surface during baking.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, do not boil hard. After the initial boil, keeping the water at a gentle simmer cooks the meat slowly. Vigorous boiling toughens muscle proteins and can dry out the outer layers, so the ham stays tender and moist.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, egg, sugar, bread, allspice, pepper, parsley):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg, sugar, bread, allspice, pepper, parsley. 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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