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Ham Glazed with Spinach

A ham boiled slowly with carrots, onion, celery, cloves, mace, thyme, and optional hay leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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

Prepare the ham

  1. If the ham is older than 4 months, soak it in cold water for 24 hours.

  2. Remove the ham from the water and scrape off any slime and dirt.

  3. Trim the exterior.

  4. Place the ham in a large pot and cover with cold water.

  5. Add carrots, onion, celery, cloves, mace, thyme, and hay leaves.

Cook and cool

  1. Boil the ham slowly for 4-5 hours, depending on size.

  2. Allow the ham to cool in its cooking liquid.

  3. Once 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.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. 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
Its long curing and cooking give the meat its firm texture and savory flavor.
Carrots
Release sweetness and aromatic flavor into the cooking liquid.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma to the cooking liquid.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavor to the cooking liquid.
Whole cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice to the cooking liquid and the ham.

The step that matters

Boiling the ham slowly. Gentle simmering cooks the ham evenly and keeps the meat tender; a hard, rapid boil can toughen the muscle fibers and make the surface tough and dry.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. 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.

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