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Baked Ham

A ham baked with brown sugar, bread crumbs, pepper, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Baked Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the ham

  1. Soak the ham in water overnight.

  2. Place the ham in a pot of cold water and bring to a boil.

  3. Boil for 15 minutes per pound until tender.

  4. Remove the ham from the heat.

Glaze and bake

  1. Skin the ham while it is hot.

  2. Sprinkle brown sugar, bread crumbs, and pepper over the top.

  3. Place the ham in a baking pan and bake slowly.

  4. Stick cloves into the top and serve 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + clovetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,129 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during slow simmering in water.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown and caramelise in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crumb layer on the surface that helps the topping crisp as it bakes.
Cloves
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the glazed surface.

The step that matters

Skin the ham while it is hot. Fat softens when warm, so the rind and fat layer peel off cleanly. Once the ham cools, the fat firms and clings to the rind, making skinning harder and messier.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Cinnamonfits about as well

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