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Ham, Spanish

A ham soaked in cold water, boiled, and braised in wine and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and wine work together. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 303 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Ham, Spanish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape the ham and soak it in cold water for 30 to 40 hours, changing the water 2-3 times.

  2. Boil the ham in cold water for 1 hour.

Braise and cool

  1. Transfer the ham to a braising pan and cover it with wine and stock.

  2. Cook gently for 4 hours or more, depending on the size of the ham.

  3. Let the ham cool in the cooking liquid.

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. 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 product; long soaking and slow cooking tenderise its dense muscle and draw out excess salt.
Wine
Adds acidity and aromatic flavour to the braising liquid, rounding the taste of the ham.
Stock
Provides moisture and savoury depth to the braising liquid during the long, gentle cook.

The step that matters

Cook gently for 4 hours or more. Simmering rather than boiling keeps the ham's proteins from tightening and toughening. Cooking time must scale with the ham's size so the centre becomes tender all the way through.

“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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