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Stuffed Ham

A ham stuffed with bread crumbs, butter, onion, and Worcestershire sauce, then cooked and pressed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the ham overnight and scrub it well in the morning.

  2. Use a narrow sharp knife to loosen the meat along the bone and withdraw it.

  3. Remove the flat bone from the butt-end of the ham.

  4. Fill the cavity with a stuffing of bread crumbs, seasoned with pepper, butter, onion, and Worcestershire sauce.

  5. Pack the stuffing tightly and sew the ham into shape using mosquito-netting.

Cook and press

  1. Cover the ham with cold water mixed with vinegar.

  2. Cook the ham for 20 minutes per pound after boiling.

  3. Leave the ham in the water until lukewarm.

  4. Press the ham under an inverted dish with a heavy weight for 8 to 10 hours.

  5. Remove the cloth and skin.

  6. Dot the top with black pepper or paprika in a pleasing pattern.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the meat that is cooked and pressed.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and butter in the stuffing, giving it a soft, cohesive texture.
Butter
Adds fat to the stuffing, enriching flavour and keeping the crumbs moist.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour to the stuffing as it cooks inside the ham.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the cooking water, sharpening the flavour of the ham.

The step that matters

Pack the stuffing tightly and sew the ham into shape. Loose stuffing can leave air gaps and let the ham fall apart. Firm packing and a secure shape help the ham hold together during cooking and pressing.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, vinegar, bread, pepper, butter, sauce. 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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