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To Boil a Ham

A ham is boiled, then coated with bread crumbs and baked until crisp, garnished with carrots and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

To Boil a Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the ham in cold water overnight.

  2. Scrape the ham clean.

Boil

  1. Place the ham in a pot with cold water.

  2. Boil the ham for 5 hours, keeping the water clear of scum.

  3. Remove the skin carefully.

Crust and serve

  1. Cover the ham with bread crumbs or grated bread crust.

  2. Place the ham before the fire or in the oven until the bread is crisp and brown.

  3. Garnish with carrots, parsley, or seasonal vegetables.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  4. Bread + carrottop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

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

  5. Ham + carrottop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in water until tender.
Bread crumbs or grated bread crust
Forms a crisp, browned crust over the ham when heated before the fire or in the oven.

The step that matters

Keeping the water clear of scum. Scum is foam and impurities that rise while boiling. Skimming it keeps the cooking liquid clean and prevents the ham from taking on off flavors and a muddy appearance.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, bread, carrot):

  1. Celeryfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, bread, carrot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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