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Boiled Ham

A ham boiled with sugar, vinegar, cloves, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Boiled Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the ham overnight with the skin side down.

  2. In the morning, scrub the ham until clean.

  3. Trim off any unsightly edges.

  4. Place the ham skin side down in a pot.

Cook

  1. Cover the ham with boiling water.

  2. Add sugar, vinegar, and cloves.

  3. Keep the water bubbling for five hours.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Ham + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Ham + vinegartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  5. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Is the main meat, cooked slowly so it becomes tender and evenly heated through.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the surface of the ham a glossy, lightly caramelized flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the ham a tangy note and helps balance the sweetness.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic spice flavor to the cooking liquid and the ham.

The step that matters

Keep the water bubbling for five hours. A steady simmer cooks the ham gently and evenly. A hard boil can toughen the meat and make it dry or stringy, while too low a heat leaves the centre under-cooked.

Swap the clove

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

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

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