Name: Ham Glazed with Spinach
Ingredients: 1 ham (3-4 months old, or soaked for 24 hours if older); 2 carrots; 1 onion; 1 stalk celery; 12 whole cloves; 1 teaspoon mace; 1 teaspoon thyme; 2 bay leaves; cold water

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 Glazed with Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

If the ham is older than 4 months, soak it in cold water for 24 hours.
Scrape off any slime and dirt from the ham.
Trim the knuckle and rough exterior from the ham.
Place the ham in a large pot and cover with cold water.
Add carrots, onion, celery, cloves, mace, thyme, and bay leaves.
Boil the ham slowly for 4-5 hours, depending on size.
Allow the ham to cool in its cooking liquid.
Remove the rind carefully 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

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.