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Ham Garnished

Ham garnished with shako raspings, vegetable flowers, and aspic jelly after long simmering.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,108 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Ham Garnished

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the ham in water for 24 hours.

  2. Scrape the ham clean and place it in a stewpan with enough water to cover it.

  3. Add the mace, thyme, cloves, and bay leaves.

Cook and cool

  1. Boil the ham for 4 to 5 hours, estimating its weight.

  2. Let the ham cool in the cooking liquid.

Decorate and serve

  1. Remove the rind carefully from the thick end without damaging the fat.

  2. Absorb excess grease with a cloth.

  3. Sprinkle shako raspings over the ham and cut designs into it with a sharp knife.

  4. Decorate the knuckle with a paper frill and vegetable flowers.

  5. Serve with a garnish of aspic jelly.

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. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Mace + thymetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,113 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Ham + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Ham + thymetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the flavour and texture of the meat.
Shako raspings
Coats the surface of the ham, adding a crisp, toasted-crumb texture and contrast to the fat.
Bay leaves
Contribute a subtle aroma to the cooking liquid that gently flavours the ham.

The step that matters

Boil the ham for 4 to 5 hours, estimating its weight.. Long, gentle simmering lets collagen in the connective tissue slowly break down, making the ham tender. Boiling too hard can toughen the meat and make the outside tough while the centre stays underdone.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Macethe original

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