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Ham Glazed

A ham glazed with honey, brown sugar, mustard, and water, baked until caramelized.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Ham and mustard work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 747 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Ham Glazed

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Score the surface of the ham in a diamond pattern.

  3. Mix honey, brown sugar, mustard, and water to create a glaze.

Glaze and bake

  1. Brush the glaze over the ham.

  2. Bake the ham for 1.5 to 2 hours, basting every 30 minutes.

  3. Let it rest before slicing.

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 + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

  2. Honey + mustardtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together919 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Honey + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,932 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,084 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Honey
Adds sweetness and sticky body, and helps the glaze brown on the surface.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and caramel notes, and promotes browning in the glaze.
Mustard
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the glaze.

The step that matters

Basting every 30 minutes. Repeated basting keeps the glaze from drying out and builds up a glossy, evenly browned layer. Sugars in the glaze can burn if the oven runs too hot, so watch the colour as it bakes.

“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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