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Baked Ham

A ham coated in rye flour paste, baked, then cloves inserted, and finished in the oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Baked 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 and scrape the ham clean.

  2. Make a paste of rye flour and water that spreads easily.

  3. Spread the paste all over the ham.

  4. Place the ham in a meat roaster on a rack or plate to keep it off the bottom.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 5 hours.

  2. When done, peel off the paste and rind, then stick cloves into the ham.

  3. Return the ham to the oven for 30 minutes.

  4. Serve hot or cold.

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. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rye + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Flour + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Ham + flourtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,516 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

Rye flour
Forms a paste that shields the ham surface during the long bake and is peeled off afterward.
Water
Mixed with the rye flour to make a spreadable paste that holds to the ham.
Cloves
Stuck into the peeled ham to add aroma after baking.

The step that matters

Keeping the paste spreadable and the ham raised off the bottom. A paste that is too thick or uneven may not coat the surface evenly, leaving parts of the ham exposed. Raising the ham on a rack lets hot air circulate around it, so the bottom does not sit in its own juices and cook unevenly during the long bake.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, rye, flour. 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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