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How to Boil an Old Virginia Ham

A method for boiling and browning an old Virginia ham with vinegar, herbs, and brown sugar, served with a brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and champagne work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and 25 recipes mention both. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the ham

  1. Weigh the ham and scrub it thoroughly with a stiff brush in lukewarm water to remove all mold.

  2. Cover the ham with cold water, add vinegar and herbs, and let it simmer slowly for 30 minutes per pound.

  3. Remove the ham from the heat and let it sit in the water until nearly cold.

Glaze and bake

  1. Peel off the skin and sprinkle brown sugar and cracker crumbs over the top, or cover with a paste made from brown flour, brown sugar, and port wine.

  2. Place the ham in the oven at 400°F (200°C) and brown it nicely.

  3. Dress the knuckle with a white paper ruffle.

Slice and serve

  1. Cut the ham into thin slices and season with cayenne pepper or mustard and lemon juice.

  2. Boil the seasoned slices for 2 minutes.

  3. Melt currant jelly with butter and pepper.

  4. Add small slices of ham to the melted mixture and let it boil 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Mustard + champagnetop 16% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together25 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Thyme + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together214 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Summer savory + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Is the main meat; simmering and browning make it tender and flavorful for slicing.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the flavor of the cooked ham.
Brown sugar
Caramelizes during browning, adding sweetness and a deep brown crust.
Currant jelly
Melts into the sauce, providing sweetness and a glossy body.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and aroma to the paste that forms the glaze.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the melted currant sauce.

The step that matters

Melting and boiling the currant sauce with ham. Boiling the ham slices in the jelly-butter mixture must be done gently enough to keep the sauce smooth; overheating can make the jelly scorch on the bottom and turn bitter.

Flavor stand-ins for the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, vinegar, thyme, summer savory, marjoram, parsley, sugar):

  1. Sagebetter flavor fit
  2. Winter savorybetter flavor fit
  3. Allspicebetter flavor fit
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, vinegar, thyme, summer savory, marjoram, parsley, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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