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To Dress Hams

A method for dressing hams by soaking, boiling, and garnishing with raspings and carrot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,918 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

To Dress Hams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the ham in water overnight.

  2. Place the ham in a hole in the ground or on damp stones for 2-3 days to mellow, covering it with a heavy tub to keep vermin away.

  3. Wash the ham thoroughly.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the ham in plenty of water for 4-6 hours, depending on its size.

  2. If serving later, cover the ham with a clean, doubled cloth and keep it warm over boiling water.

  3. Remove the skin from the ham and sprinkle raspings over it.

  4. Garnish with carrot.

  5. Preserve the skin as whole as possible to cover the ham when cold to prevent drying.

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 + carrottop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

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

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 that is mellowed and then boiled until tender.
Raspings
Sprinkled over the ham as a crumb topping for texture.

“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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