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Delicious Boiled Ham

A ham boiled for several hours, then coated with bread crumbs, brown sugar, and cloves before browning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Delicious Boiled Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the ham in cold water overnight.

  2. In the morning, scrape and wipe the ham well.

  3. Place the ham in a kettle and cover with water.

Boil and cool

  1. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce heat to maintain a gentle boil.

  2. Boil the ham for 4 to 5 hours.

  3. Remove the kettle from heat and let the ham cool in the water for 2 hours.

Glaze and brown

  1. Remove the skin from the ham.

  2. Sprinkle the surface with bread crumbs and brown sugar, then dot with cloves.

  3. Place the ham in the oven to brown.

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).

  4. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

Sugar and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Main cut of meat; long, gentle simmering makes it tender and moist.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the outside of the ham.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic flavor to the glazed surface.

The step that matters

Keep the water at a gentle boil. A vigorous rolling boil toughens the meat's proteins and can break the ham apart, so holding a gentle simmer keeps it tender and intact over the long cook.

Swap the clove

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

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

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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