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Boiled Ham

A ham boiled with vegetables, herbs, garlic, Marsala wine, and served with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,368 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Boiled Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the ham for 48 hours, changing the water three times.

  2. Scrub the ham with a stiff brush and trim off any discolorations.

Boil and simmer

  1. Place the ham in a large pot and cover it with cold water.

  2. Heat over low fire until it gently boils, skimming off any scum.

  3. Add the cleaned vegetables, herbs in a bag, and uncut garlic.

  4. Once boiling resumes, reduce heat to simmer for 4-5 hours.

  5. Cook for about 30 minutes per pound, testing for tenderness with a needle.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the ham, detach the outer skin, and strain the boiling liquid.

  2. Add Marsala and the skimmed liquid back to the pot, then simmer the ham for 1 hour, turning occasionally.

  3. Dredge the surface of the ham with fine breadcrumbs before serving.

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 + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Garlic + winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Clove + winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-isoeugenol (clove, spicy).

  4. Ham + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

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

  5. Ham + winetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together303 recipes

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

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 becomes tender and flavourful as it cooks slowly in liquid.
Marsala wine
Adds sweetness and aroma to the simmering liquid that is returned to the ham.
Fine breadcrumbs (in the method)
Form a dry coating on the ham's surface that adds texture when served.

The step that matters

Keep the simmer gentle. A rolling boil toughens the meat's proteins and can break up the surface, so the ham should only barely simmer while it cooks for hours.

Swap the garlic

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, clove, wine. 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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