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Baked Ham II

A ham baked with a mustard, vinegar, sugar, and stock glaze, basted until well glazed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Baked Ham II

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

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. Cook the ham in water until tender, then lift it out and remove the skin.

  2. Stick cloves into the ham and place it in a roasting pan.

Glaze and bake

  1. Mix mustard, vinegar, sugar, and stock in a bowl.

  2. Pour the mixture around the ham in the pan.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until well glazed, basting every 5 minutes with the liquid in the pan.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the main body of the dish, cooked through by simmering before glazing.
Sugar
Caramelises in the oven, helping the glaze brown and turn glossy.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar in the glaze.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour that complements the sweet and savoury notes of the ham.
Stock
Keeps the glaze liquid so it can be basted over the ham and moisten its surface.

The step that matters

Basting the ham in the oven. Sugar in the glaze can scorch if the surface dries out or the heat is too high. Regular basting with the pan liquid keeps the surface moist and lets the sugars caramelise evenly into a glossy coating.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, mustard, 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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