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Stuffed Ham

A ham stuffed with bread crumbs, eggs, herbs, and baked with a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Ham

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.

Cook the ham

  1. Boil the ham slowly for 3 hours.

  2. Let it cool in the cooking liquid.

  3. Remove the skin and trim the ham into a good shape.

  4. Stand the ham upright and use a boning knife to remove the bone.

Make the stuffing and sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, beaten eggs, parsley, butter, cayenne, onion, salt, and any spices or herbs you like.

  2. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a saucepan. Stir in the flour until smooth.

  3. Add the ham liquor, half of the small onion, parsley, and red pepper. Let it thicken.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the ham in a roasting pan and pour the sauce over it.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 to 2 hours, basting frequently.

  3. When done, brush the surface with beaten egg white, sprinkle with cracker crumbs, and pour over melted butter. Brown the top.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Forms the main body and carries the flavour of the dish.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the beaten eggs and butter to form a moist, bindable stuffing.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing together as they set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and moisture in the stuffing and topping.
Flour
Thickens the ham liquor into a smooth sauce.
Ham liquor
Provides savoury body to the sauce, built from the ham's own cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Stir the flour into the melted butter until smooth. Flour clumps if added to hot fat without being stirred in evenly; cooking it briefly in the butter before adding liquid lets the starch disperse and thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, bread, egg, parsley, butter, pepper, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, bread, egg, parsley, butter, pepper, sauce. 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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