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Boiled Ham

A ham boiled for five hours, then baked with bread crumbs and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Boiled Ham

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Boil and skin

  1. Boil the ham for 5 hours.

  2. Remove the ham and skin it completely.

Bake and finish

  1. Place the ham in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  2. Cover the ham with bread crumbs and return it to the oven for another 30 minutes.

  3. Garnish with cloves.

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. Bread + clovetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,129 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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 through by long boiling and then gently finished in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the outside of the ham as they bake.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, 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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