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Boiled Ham

A ham boiled with herbs, bay leaf, carrots, and finished with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Prepare

  1. Soak the ham for 12 to 14 hours.

  2. Place the ham in a suitable vessel and cover it with cold water.

Cook

  1. Bring the water to a boil slowly, skimming off any scum.

  2. Reduce the heat and simmer the ham gently until tender, about 4.5 hours.

  3. Add the herbs, bay leaf, and carrots to the pot for flavor.

Finish

  1. Once boiled, remove the skin and sprinkle fine bread crumbs over the ham.

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. Carrot + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Ham + carrottop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid as it simmers.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a light crust on the ham's surface, adding texture.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until tender. Keeping the water at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil keeps the meat tender and prevents the proteins from tightening and toughening.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, 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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