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Boiled Ham

A ham boiled, then baked with sugar, breadcrumbs, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Boiled 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 in cold water overnight.

  2. In the morning, remove the ham, wipe it, and place it in a saucepan covered with fresh cold water.

  3. Boil slowly for about 3 hours.

Finish and bake

  1. Remove the skin, sprinkle with a little sugar, and make a few incisions on the surface.

  2. Cover lightly with fine bread crumbs and sprinkle with white pepper.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until well browned.

  4. Let the ham cool completely before slicing into delicate slices.

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

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

  2. Ham + white peppertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together535 recipes

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

  3. Bread + white peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together925 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + breadtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,638 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Is the main ingredient, providing the meat that is cooked, browned and sliced.
Sugar
Helps the surface brown in the oven and adds a touch of sweetness.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a light crust on the surface that toasts and browns during baking.

The step that matters

Bake until well browned. The surface needs enough heat to brown and crisp the crumbs and sugar. Sugar and proteins react at high heat to create browning, so an oven that is too cool or too short a bake leaves the crust pale.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sugar, bread. 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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