Name: Baked Ham
Ingredients: 1 ham; 1 tablespoon white sugar; whole cloves; vinegar; water

Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Baked Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Boil the ham for four hours.
Remove the skin and rub 1 tablespoon of white sugar into the rind.
Stick whole cloves into the ham.

Bake

Bake the ham, basting with a mixture of vinegar and water.

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.

Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Clove + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,386 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ham + clovetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,666 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Ham + vinegartop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together737 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).
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

Ham: Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through by boiling and then baking.
White sugar: Rubbed into the rind, it promotes browning and adds sweetness to the surface.
Whole cloves: Stuck into the ham, they add a warm, spiced aroma.
Vinegar: Added to the basting mixture, it adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the glaze.