Name: Baked Ham
Ingredients: 16 pound ham; 1½ cups buttermilk; 1 pound brown sugar; fine bread crumbs

Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Baked Ham

Ingredients

16 pound ham
1½ cups buttermilk
1 pound brown sugar
fine bread crumbs

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the ham

Boil the ham for 3 hours.
Remove the skin and rub in the buttermilk.

Coat the ham

Mix water and brown sugar together.
Cover the ham with fine bread crumbs.

Bake

Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours.

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.

Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,973 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + breadtop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,638 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Buttermilk + breadtop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together69 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,084 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham: The main cut, cooked slowly so it becomes tender.
Buttermilk: Adds moisture and a mild tang that helps keep the surface soft.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the coating brown and caramelise in the oven.

“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.