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Ham

A boiled ham flavored with onions, garlic, shallots, bay leaf, sweet herbs, cloves, peppercorns, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak, scrape, and clean the ham.

  2. Cut the ham in half if it is over 7 pounds.

Simmer

  1. Place the ham in an earthen vessel and cover with water.

  2. Add onions, garlic, shallots, bay leaf, sweet herbs, cloves, peppercorns, and allspice.

  3. Cover and simmer for 3 hours.

  4. Remove the rind.

  5. Serve with raspings or glazing.

Save the liquid

  1. Strain the cooking liquid.

  2. Reserve the strained liquid for future use.

  3. When boiling poultry or meat, add the reserved liquid and reduce to about 3 pints.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Shallot + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Is the main meat that becomes tender and flavourful as it simmers slowly in liquid.
Onions
Release sweetness and aromatic flavour into the cooking liquid as they simmer.
Cloves
Add a warm, pungent aroma that flavours the simmering liquid.
Peppercorns
Add gentle, lingering heat and spice to the cooking liquid.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, clove, garlic, shallot, allspice):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, clove, garlic, shallot, allspice. 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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