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Hams — Continued

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and sherry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 132 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Hams — Continued

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

  1. If the ham is very salty, soak it overnight. Clean and trim it, then place it in a large saucepan and cover with water.

  2. Simmer the ham slowly for 30 minutes per pound.

  3. Mix 1 teaspoon of browned flour and ½ cup of moist sugar with a little port wine.

  4. After cooking, remove the skin from the ham and spread the paste over it. Brown it in the oven at 400°F (200°C).

  5. Serve the ham on a hot dish with a paper ruffle around the knuckle and a brown sauce mixed with champagne.

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. Port wine + sherrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together132 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + carrottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, flour, sugar, port wine, sherry, celery, carrot):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, flour, sugar, port wine, sherry, celery, carrot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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