Why it works: Ham and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,084 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Boiled Ham
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the ham
Wash the ham very clean and place it in a pot with cold water to cover.
Simmer gently for 5 hours, then set the pot aside for 1 to 2 hours.
When nearly cold, remove the ham and peel off the skin.
Finish and bake
Cover the ham with cracker crumbs and sprinkle with sugar.
Place in a baking pan in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes.
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.
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Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Main meat; long gentle simmering tenderizes its connective tissue while it cooks through.
- Cracker crumbs
- Form a crisp coating that browns in the oven.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crumb coating brown.
The step that matters
Simmer gently for 5 hours. If the water boils hard instead of barely simmering, the outer meat toughens and dries while the inside stays underdone. A gentle simmer cooks the ham evenly and keeps it tender and moist.
“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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