Skip to main content
Baking

Baked Ham

A large ham is soaked, boiled with vegetables, then wrapped in a flour‑bran‑dripping paste and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Baked Ham

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the ham

  1. Soak the ham in cold water overnight.

  2. Scrape and wash the ham thoroughly.

Simmer

  1. In an iron pot, combine the ham with onion, carrots, celery, turnip, parsley, cloves, peppercorns, mace, garlic, and enough water to cover.

  2. Bring to a gentle boil, skim off any foam, then simmer for 2 hours.

Make the crust and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix dripping into flour and bran, then add enough hot water to form a firm paste.

  2. Roll the paste out to about 1 inch thick, wrap it around the ham, and press it to adhere.

  3. Place the wrapped ham on a tin dish and bake in a gentle oven at 300°F (150°C) for 6½ hours.

  4. If serving cold, let the ham cool in the paste before cracking it open.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

York ham
Is the main cut that is simmered and then baked inside the paste.
Flour
Forms the structure of the firm paste that encloses the ham.
Bran
Adds bulk and texture to the paste, helping it hold its shape around the ham.
Dripping
Adds fat to the paste, keeping it moist and helping it bind with the flour and bran.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during baking.

The step that matters

Sealing the paste around the ham. The paste must be firm and fully pressed against the ham. If it is loose or has gaps, it can crack or leak during the long bake, leaving the meat dry and uneven in texture.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, onion, carrot, celery, turnip, parsley, clove):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, onion, carrot, celery, turnip, parsley, clove. 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.

More baked ham recipes

with Apples 3 See all 159 →

You might also like

Delicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipesCitron CakeCitron Cake68 recipesScotch CakeScotch Cake63 recipes