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To Stuff Ham

A smoked ham is sliced, stuffed with parsley and pepper, and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Stuff Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the ham and leave the skin on.

  2. Make incisions all over the top, about 2 inches deep.

  3. Stuff the incisions with chopped parsley and pepper.

Serve

  1. 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Ham + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,249 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Forms the main body of the dish, carrying the flavour of the stuffing.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma that contrasts with the smoky ham.
Pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic heat that seasons the meat within the incisions.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, 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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