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Potted Ham

Ham that is pounded with butter, seasoned, packed into pots, covered with clarified butter, and stored overnight.

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

Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Cut the boiled ham into pieces.

  2. Pound the ham in a mortar with fresh butter until it forms a fine paste.

  3. Season the mixture gradually with pounded mace, black pepper, and allspice.

Pot and set

  1. Pack the mixture tightly into pots.

  2. Cover the mixture with clarified butter, about ¼ inch thick.

  3. Let it stand overnight in a cool place.

  4. Tie the pots with paper.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Boiled ham
Provides the main body and meaty flavour of the potted mixture.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, spreadable texture when pounded with the ham.
Clarified butter
Forms a sealed layer over the top that helps keep air out and the ham fresh.

The step that matters

Pounding to a fine paste. If the ham and butter are not pounded until smooth, the mixture stays coarse and crumbly rather than spreadable. Working the ingredients together evenly also distributes the seasoning through the whole batch.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, pepper, allspice. 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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