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Baked Ham

A ham encased in a flour dough, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,516 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Baked Ham

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Clean the ham thoroughly.

  2. Make a dough with flour and water; knead until smooth.

  3. Roll the dough to ½ inch thick and large enough to cover the ham.

Wrap and bake

  1. Enclose the ham in the dough and pinch the edges firmly together.

  2. Lift the ham slightly from the bottom of the roasting pan using a tin sheet or perforated pie plate to prevent burning.

  3. Bake the ham in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 5 hours.

Finish

  1. Cool the ham, then remove the dough and skin.

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. Flour + hamtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,516 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

Flour
Forms the dough that encloses the ham and seals in moisture while it bakes.
Water
Hydrates the flour so it becomes a smooth, kneadable dough.
Ham
The main cut of meat, cooked gently inside the sealed dough.

The step that matters

Lift the ham off the bottom of the pan. Direct contact with the hot pan base can scorch the dough and meat, so a tin sheet or perforated pie plate keeps the bottom from burning while heat circulates around it.

“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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