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To Boil a Ham

A ham is boiled, then seasoned with bread crumbs and sugar, and finished over a fire.

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 ↓

To Boil a Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the ham well in warm water and scrub it clean.

  2. Trim off any rusty parts and place the ham in a large pot.

Boil

  1. Cover the ham with plenty of lukewarm water and let it simmer for 4 to 5 hours.

  2. Remove the skin as whole as possible.

Glaze and serve

  1. Sift bread crumbs and a little sugar over the ham.

  2. Set the ham before the fire for 2 to 3 minutes.

  3. Wrap a fringe of white paper around the knuckle.

  4. When cold, lay the skin over the ham to keep it moist.

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. Bread + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,638 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. 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

Ham
Is the main cut that is simmered until tender and then served.
Bread crumbs
Form a crust-like coating with the sugar that adds texture and light browning.
Sugar
Sweetens the crumb coating and helps it brown when heated.

The step that matters

Simmering for 4 to 5 hours. Simmering gently rather than boiling hard keeps the meat tender and prevents it from toughening or falling apart. Keeping the ham fully covered by water maintains even heat through the joint.

“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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