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Grilled or Baked Ham with Wine

Slices of cooked ham are soaked in wine, coated with breadcrumbs, parsley, and pepper, then grilled or baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Grilled or Baked Ham with Wine

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

  1. Soak the slices of cooked ham in wine.

  2. Add breadcrumbs, parsley, and pepper to the ham.

Cook and brown

  1. Grill the slices or place them in a pudding dish.

  2. Brown in the oven at 400°F (200°C).

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Wine + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Wine + parsleytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

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

  5. Ham + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,249 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

Cooked ham
Forms the main body of the dish and supplies its savoury flavour.
Wine
Adds moisture and flavour to the ham while it soaks.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb liquid and form a crisp, browned coating in the oven.

The step that matters

Brown in the oven at 400°F (200°C). Breadcrumbs brown through the Maillard reaction, which needs dry, high heat. Leaving the ham in too long can dry out the meat, while too little heat leaves the coating pale and soggy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Rosemaryfits about as well
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, wine, pepper. 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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