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Boiled Ham

A ham boiled with optional carrot, celery seed, herbs, and bread‑raspings, then roasted to set crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Boiled Ham

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.

Prepare and cook

  1. Trim, scrape, and brush the ham well.

  2. Place the ham in a stewpan and cover it with cold water.

  3. Heat slowly and skim carefully.

  4. After boiling for 2 minutes, reduce to a gentle simmer until done (about 30 minutes per pound).

  5. Check doneness by piercing with a skewer; the skin should peel off easily.

  6. If serving cold, leave in the cooking liquid until half cold, but do not leave overnight.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the skin, trim the ham, and sprinkle with bread-raspings.

  2. Place in the oven at 400°F (200°C) or before the fire to set the crumbs.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

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

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

  4. Bread + celerytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,110 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Ham + celerytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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 finished with a crumb coating.
Bread-raspings
Form a crisp, golden coating on the outside of the cooked ham once set by heat.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after the initial boil. A rolling boil toughens the meat and makes the skin split and the texture stringy. A gentle simmer cooks the ham evenly and keeps it moist and tender.

Swap the carrot

The recipe marks carrot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, bread, celery):

  1. Mustardfits about as well
  2. Carrotthe original
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Leekfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, bread, celery. 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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