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Dessert

Glaze for Cold Ham

A glaze made from beaten egg yolk, stale bread crumbs, and thick cream applied to cooled boiled ham.

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

Glaze for Cold Ham

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and coat

  1. Peel the skin off the boiled ham and let it cool.

  2. Brush the ham with the beaten egg yolk.

  3. Sprinkle the ham thickly with stale bread crumbs.

  4. Cover the ham with a thick layer of cream.

Brown

  1. Brown the ham in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

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).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Ham + creamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,370 recipes

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

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps the coating brown evenly.
Stale bread crumbs
Form a crisp, absorbent layer that holds the coating in place.
Thick cream
Adds moisture and richness, and its milk sugars and fats help the surface brown.

The step that matters

Browning in the hot oven. Proteins and sugars in the cream and yolk brown through the Maillard reaction, but the crumbs can scorch quickly if the oven runs too hot or the ham stays in too long.

“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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