Skip to main content
Main

To Boil a Ham

A ham boiled in salted water, then cooled, skin removed, and optionally roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

To Boil a Ham

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the ham in cold water for 24 hours, or longer if very dry.

  2. Scrape the ham well and cut off any rusty fat.

Cook and cool

  1. Place the ham in a pan of cold water and bring to a boil.

  2. Simmer gently for 1 hour for every pound of meat.

  3. Let the ham cool in the cooking liquid.

Finish

  1. Remove the skin and cover the ham with bread crumbs.

  2. If desired, finish cooking by roasting in a 350°F (175°C) oven for the last hour.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Is the main cut of meat that is cooked, cooled and served.
Bread crumbs
Form a coating over the surface of the cooked ham.

The step that matters

Soaking the ham. Soaking for a full 24 hours or longer draws out excess salt from a cured, very dry ham, so the finished meat is not overly salty. Soaking time should be extended when the ham is especially dry.

“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.

More boiled ham recipes

Cold 4 See all 328 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes