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Preserve

Potted Ham

A ham prepared by soaking, baking, and seasoning with veal, butter, mace, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Potted Ham

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Potted 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 for 12 hours.

  2. Wipe the ham dry and trim it.

  3. Wrap the ham in coarse paste.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake the wrapped ham at 300°F (150°C) until tender.

  2. Remove the crust and rind from the ham.

  3. Let the ham cool completely.

  4. Weigh the ham after removing skin and fiber.

Make the potted mixture

  1. For each pound of ham, use 6 ounces of cold roast veal.

  2. Mince the veal finely with a sharp knife.

  3. Pound the veal with 8 ounces of butter, adding it gradually.

  4. Mix in the mace, grated nutmeg, and cayenne pepper.

  5. Pound and turn the mixture to ensure even seasoning.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Ham + vealtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  4. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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 potted meat and carries most of its flavor.
Veal
Adds soft, finely minced meat that blends into a smooth, spreadable texture.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the mixture and keeps it soft and spreadable.
Mace
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice flavor to the meat.
Nutmeg
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice flavor to the meat.

The step that matters

Pound the veal with the butter, adding it gradually. Adding butter slowly while pounding lets the fat blend evenly into the minced meat, giving a smooth, uniform texture instead of a greasy or grainy one.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, veal, nutmeg, 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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