Name: Ham Olazed with Spinach
Ingredients: 1 ham (3-4 months old, or older if soaked); 2 carrots; 2 onions; 2 stalks of celery; 12 whole cloves; 1 teaspoon mace; 1 teaspoon dried thyme; 2 bay leaves; Cold water (enough to cover the ham)

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Ham Olazed with Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

If the ham is older than 4 months, soak it in cold water for 24 hours.
Remove the ham from the water, scrape off any slime and dirt, and trim the knuckle and rough exterior.
Place the ham in a large pot and cover it with cold water.

Make the broth

Add the carrots, onions, celery, cloves, mace, thyme, and bay leaves.
Boil the ham slowly for 4-5 hours, depending on its size.

Cool and finish

Once cooked, let the ham cool in its own liquid.
When cool, carefully remove the rind without taking off the fat.

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.

Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,108 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,563 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,193 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham: Supplies the meat and fat that flavour the broth as it simmers slowly.
Onions: Release sugars and aromatic compounds that add sweetness and depth to the broth.
Carrots: Add natural sweetness and body to the broth during the long simmer.
Celery: Contributes savoury, vegetal aroma that rounds out the broth.
Whole cloves: Add warm, aromatic spice notes that infuse the broth slowly.

The step that matters

Boil the ham slowly. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil keeps the broth clear and the meat tender, since vigorous boiling emulsifies fat and toughens proteins.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, carrot, onion, celery, clove, thyme):

Marjoramfits better
Winter savoryfits better
Parsleyfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, carrot, onion, celery, clove, thyme. 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.

Carrot Soup134 recipes

Cream of Celery Soup113 recipes

Celery Stew25 recipes

Celery Croquettes16 recipes

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Ham Olazed with Spinach