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Baked Virginia Ham

A ham baked with a brown sugar and mustard glaze, studded with cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,829 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Baked Virginia Ham

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Soak the ham in water overnight.

  2. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  3. Place the ham in a roasting pan.

Glaze and bake

  1. Mix brown sugar and mustard to form a paste.

  2. Spread the paste over the ham and stud with cloves.

  3. Bake for 1.5 to 2 hours, basting occasionally.

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. Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and caramelizes on the surface, helping form a browned glaze.
Mustard
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar glaze.
Cloves
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavor to the glazed surface.

The step that matters

Basting occasionally during the bake. Basting keeps the surface moist and spreads the glaze evenly, so the sugar in it browns without burning or drying out during the long bake.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sugar, mustard. 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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