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Boiled Ham, French Style

A ham boiled and then baked with a vinegar and brown sugar glaze, finished with cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Boiled Ham, French Style

Ingredients

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

  1. Wash the ham thoroughly.

  2. Plunge it into boiling water and cook slowly for 2.5 hours.

  3. Remove the ham from the water and trim off the brown skin.

Glaze and bake

  1. Place the ham in a baking pan.

  2. Mix the vinegar and brown sugar together.

  3. Decorate the ham with whole cloves and pour the vinegar-sugar mixture over it.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes, basting frequently.

  5. Keep the skin side up while cooking.

Chill and serve

  1. Transfer to a platter and refrigerate until cold.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Ham + vinegartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  5. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 of meat that is cooked, glazed and served cold.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sweet glaze and balances the rich pork.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the glaze caramelise and brown during baking.

The step that matters

Bake with frequent basting. Basting keeps the glaze moist and spreads it over the surface, so the sugar caramelises evenly without burning and the ham stays juicy in the oven.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, vinegar, sugar. 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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