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Baked Ham

A ham is soaked, simmered with aromatics, then coated with bread crumbs and brown sugar and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Ham

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the ham in cold water overnight.

  2. Scrub the ham with a brush.

  3. Cover the ham with cold water.

  4. Add the onion, celery, parsley, red pepper, and whole cloves.

Cook and cool

  1. Bring the ham to a boil.

  2. Simmer the ham for 15 minutes per pound (about 3 hours for a 12‑pound ham).

  3. Let the ham cool in the cooking liquid.

  4. On the third day, remove the skin.

Glaze and bake

  1. Cover the ham with a paste made of dry bread crumbs, brown sugar, and the cooking liquid.

  2. Stick the top of the ham with whole cloves.

  3. Bake the ham at 300°F (150°C) for 1 hour.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 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
Is the main cut, giving the dish its meat, flavour and body during long, gentle cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crumb paste darken and caramelise in the oven.
Dry bread crumbs
Form a paste with the cooking liquid that clings to the surface and holds moisture.
Whole cloves
Add aromatic spice to the surface of the ham as it bakes.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after bringing to a boil. A rolling boil toughens the meat and can break it apart, while a gentle simmer cooks it evenly and keeps it tender and moist.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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