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To Boil Bacon-ham

A ham boiled in water with vinegar, pepper, mustard, and sugar, then browned and basted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Boil Bacon-ham

Ingredients

Directions

Boil

  1. Clean the ham well and place it in a large pot.

  2. Fill the pot with cold water and bring to a slow boil.

  3. Boil for 5-6 hours, then remove the ham and let it drain.

  4. While still hot or when cool, remove the skin.

Glaze and roast

  1. Place the ham in the oven to brown.

  2. Mix vinegar, black pepper, ground mustard, and sugar.

  3. Baste the ham with the mixture while it roasts.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
The main cut of meat, cooked by boiling and then browned in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and caramelises in the oven to give the glaze a browned surface.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the glaze a sharp, tangy note against the sweet sugar.
Ground mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that balances the sweetness of the glaze.
Black pepper
Adds a mild, woody heat and aroma to the glaze.

The step that matters

Basting the ham while it roasts. The sugar in the glaze caramelises and darkens quickly at oven heat, so it can scorch before the ham is evenly browned. Basting in small amounts and watching the colour keeps the glaze glossy rather than burnt.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Cabbagefits less well
  4. Cucumberfits less well

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