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To Boil a Ham

A ham boiled with cloves, allspice, mace, nutmeg, sugar, then baked with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Boil a Ham

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.

Prepare

  1. Soak the ham in plenty of water for 20 to 40 hours, depending on its size.

  2. Trim the ham, removing any rusty portions.

Boil

  1. In a kettle, add enough water to cover the ham and add the cloves, allspice, mace, nutmeg, and sugar.

  2. Skim the water thoroughly as it boils until the skin can be easily peeled off.

  3. Remove the ham from the heat and let it cool in the cooking liquid.

Finish and bake

  1. Once cooled, remove the skin and cover the ham with grated bread crumbs.

  2. Finish by baking in a 350°F (175°C) oven until golden.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 of meat that is slowly cooked and becomes tender and moist in the liquid.
Sugar
Balances the salty cured meat and helps the surface brown during baking.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic spice flavour that penetrates the ham during simmering.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on the outside of the ham when baked.

The step that matters

Skim the water as it boils. Foam and impurities rise to the surface as the liquid boils. Skimming them off keeps the cooking liquid clear and the ham's flavour clean.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, clove, allspice, nutmeg, sugar, bread):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, clove, allspice, nutmeg, sugar, bread. 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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