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Baked Ham I

A ham baked with brown sugar, bread crumbs, and white pepper, served hot or cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 I

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.

Cook the ham

  1. Cook the ham in water for 3 to 4 hours; then remove it and take off the skin.

Glaze and bake

  1. Sprinkle the ham with 14 tablespoons of brown sugar mixed with 2 tablespoons of sifted bread crumbs.

  2. Add white pepper to taste, then place the ham in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) and bake until well browned.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold. If serving hot, accompany with Hot Sauce Tartare.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  2. Ham + white peppertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together535 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Bread + white peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together925 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + breadtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,638 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. 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 gently in water first, then glazed and browned in the oven.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the surface and caramelizes in the oven to give the ham a browned crust.

The step that matters

Bake until well browned. Sugar caramelizes and darkens quickly in a hot oven, so the glaze can burn before the ham is heated through. Check the surface often and lower the heat or cover it if it darkens too fast.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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