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Boiled Ham

A ham boiled with vinegar, bay leaves, thyme, parsley, then baked with bread crust and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. 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 in cold water for 12 to 24 hours.

  2. Cover the ham with boiling water and add vinegar, bay leaves, thyme, and parsley.

  3. Boil slowly for 2.5 hours.

Trim and glaze

  1. Remove the ham, skim the water, and leave a ½ inch layer of fat.

  2. Cut off any blackened parts.

  3. Place the ham in a dripping pan, fat side up.

  4. Grate bread crust over the ham and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes until browned.

Serve

  1. Serve cold, slicing the best portions; use scraps for sandwiches or an omelette.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

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 that is simmered, then baked to brown the outside.
Vinegar
Adds a light acidity to the cooking water, sharpening the flavour of the meat.
Bread crust
Browns in the oven and adds a crisp, toasted coating to the fat layer.
Powdered sugar
Caramelises on the surface during baking, helping the top brown and taste sweet.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 2.5 hours. A gentle simmer cooks the ham evenly and keeps it tender. A hard, rapid boil toughens the meat fibres and can make the surface break apart.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

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