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Baked Ham

A ham baked with sherry wine, cloves, cracker crumbs, brown sugar, and a brown stock gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,237 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Baked Ham

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the ham

  1. Prepare the ham as you would for boiling and simmer it slowly for four hours.

  2. Remove the ham and cut off the skin.

  3. Press cloves into the fat of the ham.

Bake and glaze

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for two hours, basting initially with sherry wine and then with the fat in the pan.

  2. Fifteen minutes before it's done, cover the ham with cracker crumbs and brown sugar.

Make the gravy

  1. If serving hot, make a gravy by stirring flour into the fat from the pan, then add brown stock.

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. Sherry + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,237 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ham + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Clove + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wine + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-isoeugenol (clove, spicy).

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, cooked slowly so it becomes tender and moist.
Sherry wine
Adds aroma and flavour to the ham during basting.
Brown sugar
Caramelises on the surface, adding sweetness and browning to the glaze.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the outside of the ham.
Flour
Thickens the pan fat into a smooth gravy.
Brown stock
Adds savoury body and liquid to the gravy.

The step that matters

Covering with crumbs and sugar fifteen minutes before the end. Added too early, the sugar can burn before the ham is heated through, leaving a bitter crust. Timing it near the end lets the glaze brown and caramelise without scorching.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sherry, wine, sugar, flour. 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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