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Baked Ham

A ham baked with currant jelly, sherry wine, and browned bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Baked Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the ham in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Bring the water to a boil, then pour it off and add boiling water until the ham is covered.

  3. Boil for 20 minutes for each pound of ham.

  4. Remove the ham, place it in cold water, and peel it.

Glaze and bake

  1. Place the ham in a baking pan, cover it with currant jelly, and baste with sherry wine for 20 minutes.

  2. Sprinkle browned bread crumbs over the ham and add dots of currant jelly.

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. Currant + sherrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Currant + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Ham + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Sherry + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together682 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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, and its long soak and boil make it tender and less salty.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a glossy glaze that helps the surface brown.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the basting liquid, balancing the sweet jelly.
Browned bread crumbs
Adds a crisp, golden, toasted crust on top of the ham.

The step that matters

Peeling the ham after boiling. The ham is still hot and tender at this point, so peeling is easier and tears less of the meat. Leaving a thin fat layer keeps moisture in the glaze and surface.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sherry, wine, bread. 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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