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Cooking Whole Hams

A method for cooking a whole ham with cider or wine, hay, water, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Cooking Whole Hams

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. Soak the ham first.

Cook

  1. Place the ham in a pot, add cider or red wine, and fill gaps with sweet meadow hay.

  2. Add a little water, cover, and cook slowly according to the size of the ham.

Finish

  1. Remove from the pot, take off the skin, and baste with bread crumbs.

  2. Roast in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) on the lower shelf for 30 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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  2. Cider + breadtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).

  3. Ham + cidertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together83 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole ham
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, moist cooking.
Cider or red wine
Adds acidity and aroma, and gently flavours the meat as it cooks.
Sweet meadow hay
Fills gaps around the ham and adds a subtle aroma during cooking.
Bread crumbs
Forms a coating that helps the surface brown and crisp in the oven.

The step that matters

Cook slowly according to the size of the ham. Slow, moist cooking lets connective tissue break down gradually, so the meat stays tender. Cooking too fast or too long can leave it dry and tough, so timing must match the ham's size.

“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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