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Stuffed Hah

A ham stuffed with pecans, eggs, mushrooms, truffles, chopped ham, mustard seed, spices, onion, and salt, then boiled and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,928 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Stuffed Hah

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the ham in water for 48 hours.

  2. Using a sharp knife, cut along the back to loosen the meat from the bone.

  3. Remove the bone and fill the cavity with stuffing.

  4. Sew the ham closed with a coarse needle and strong thread.

  5. Wrap the ham tightly in a strip of cotton cloth to maintain its shape.

Cook and cool

  1. Boil the wrapped ham slowly for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Let the ham cool in the bandage.

Finish

  1. Cover the cooled ham with sugar and bake until golden.

  2. Decorate to taste.

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. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set and bind the stuffing so it holds its shape when sliced.
Pecans
Add crunch and richness to the stuffing.
Finely chopped ham
Adds savoury meaty flavour to the stuffing.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savoury depth to the stuffing.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Boil the wrapped ham slowly. A gentle simmer cooks the ham and sets the stuffing evenly without breaking the wrapping or pushing filling out. A hard, rapid boil can loosen the seams and make the ham cook unevenly.

Swap the pecans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, egg, mushroom, truffle, mustard, pepper, allspice):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg, mushroom, truffle, mustard, pepper, allspice. 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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