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Baked Ham

A ham baked with rolled crackers, sugar, black pepper, cloves, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the ham for three to four hours until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Remove the skin from the ham.

Coat and bake

  1. Cover the ham with rolled crackers and sugar.

  2. Sprinkle with black pepper, whole cloves, and allspice.

  3. Place in the oven and brown.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 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
Main cut of meat, cooked through by boiling before the final browning.
Rolled crackers
Form a crumb coating that browns and adds a crisp surface in the oven.
Sugar
Caramelizes on the surface in the oven, adding sweetness and deeper browning.

The step that matters

Place in the oven and brown. Sugar and cracker crumbs can scorch before the coating is evenly browned. Watching the surface closely keeps the sugar caramelized rather than burnt and bitter.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sugar, pepper, clove. 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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