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Cooked Ham

A ham cooked with vinegar, spices, and sherry, then baked and basted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Cooked Ham

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the ham in cold water for 12 hours.

  2. Boil the ham, allowing 15 minutes for each pound.

  3. Pour off the water and refill the pot with fresh boiling water.

  4. Add vinegar, allspice, cloves, and bay leaf to the pot.

  5. Boil again, allowing 30 minutes for each pound.

  6. Let the ham sit in the liquid until cold.

Glaze and bake

  1. Skin the ham and cover the top with mustard paste.

  2. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and lightly with sugar.

  3. Score the ham and pull the scorings wide.

  4. Pour in cooking sherry and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 30 minutes, basting every 5 minutes.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh cured ham
Provides the main meat, which is salted and cured before cooking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the cooking liquid, which helps flavor the meat.
Cloves
Contribute a warm, aromatic flavor to the cooking liquid.
Mustard
Forms a tangy paste that flavors the surface of the skinned ham.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the oven.
Cooking sherry
Adds moisture and flavor to the ham as it bakes.

The step that matters

Boiling in two stages. The first boil is timed by weight, and the ham must be fully cooked before glazing. Boiling too long or too hard can make the meat dry and stringy, so timing and a gentle simmer matter.

Swap the allspice

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, vinegar, clove, mustard, bread, sugar, sherry. 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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