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Boiled Ham

A ham boiled for hours, then baked with cracker crumbs and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,084 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. 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

  1. Wash the ham thoroughly.

  2. Place the ham in a pot with cold water to cover.

Simmer and cool

  1. Simmer gently for 5 hours.

  2. Set the pot aside for 1 to 2 hours.

  3. When nearly cold, remove the ham.

  4. Peel off the skin.

Glaze and bake

  1. Cover the ham with cracker crumbs.

  2. Sprinkle the ham with sugar.

  3. Place the ham in a baking pan.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 to 40 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. Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,084 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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, cooked gently in water until tender and juicy.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during baking.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crust on the outside of the ham as it bakes.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 5 hours. Keeping the water at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil cooks the ham evenly and keeps the meat tender instead of tough and stringy.

“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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