Name: Xew Ham, Boiled
Ingredients: 1 new ham; cabbage; turnips

Why it works: Cabbage and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 897 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Xew Ham, Boiled

Ingredients

1 new ham
cabbage
turnips

Directions

Place the new ham in a pot and cover with water.
Bring to a boil and cook for 1 hour.
Remove the pot from heat, discard the cooking liquid, and add cold water.
Return to heat and boil briskly.
In a separate pot, boil the cabbage and turnips until tender.
Serve the ham with the cabbage and turnips on the side.

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.

Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together897 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ham + cabbagetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together186 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
Ham + turniptop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together692 recipes

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