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Baked Ham

A ham baked with cloves, vinegar, brown sugar, egg, mustard, breadcrumbs, and black pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Baked Ham

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the ham overnight, skin side up.

  2. Wash the ham and place it in a large pot.

Simmer

  1. Cover with cold water and add cloves, vinegar, and brown sugar.

  2. Boil slowly for three hours.

Glaze and bake

  1. Remove the skin and brush the ham with the beaten egg and mustard.

  2. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and black pepper.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for two hours, basting with the cooking liquid.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Brown sugar
Sweetens the liquid and glaze, and caramelizes to a deep brown during baking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the brown sugar.
Egg
Binds the mustard and bread crumbs so they stay on the surface of the ham.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the glazed surface.
Whole cloves
Add a warm, spiced aroma to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Basting during the bake. Brushing the ham with the cooking liquid keeps the surface moist while the sugars caramelize. Without basting, the glaze can dry out, burn, or brown unevenly before the ham is heated through.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, vinegar, sugar, egg, mustard, bread, pepper. 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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