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Ham Braised

A smoked ham braised in water, Madeira wine, and bay leaves, served with stewed spinach and mashed turnips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and madeira wine work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 154 recipes. The science ↓

Ham Braised

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Braise

  1. Trim the ham and place it in a braising pan.

  2. Add water, Madeira wine, and bay leaves to the pan.

  3. Cover the pan and simmer over medium heat until the ham is very tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the ham, wipe it dry, and take off the rind.

  2. Glaze the top of the ham and serve on a large dish.

  3. Accompany with stewed spinach on one side and mashed turnips on the other.

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 + madeira winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together154 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Smoked ham
Provides the main meat and smoky flavor that the braising liquid slowly softens.
Madeira wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the braising liquid, flavoring the ham as it cooks.
Water
Forms the braising liquid that keeps the ham moist and gently tenderizes it during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmering until very tender. Simmering gently keeps the braising liquid below a hard boil, so collagen in the ham breaks down slowly into gelatin without the meat drying out or toughening. Cooking too fast tightens the muscle fibers and leaves the ham tough.

“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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