Why it works: Mace and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓
To Cure Hams
Ingredients
Directions
Cure the hams
Mix all ingredients together and rub thoroughly into the hams.
Pack the meat in a cask or tub with the skin side down.
After three weeks, change the top layer to the bottom.
Let the hams lie in pickle for six to seven weeks.
If using a brine, let the hams remain in it for four to six weeks.
Smoke and store
Wash the hams and wipe them dry.
Hang the hams up to smoke for one to two weeks, or up to three months.
To smoke without a smokehouse, suspend hams from a board across a hogshead.
Use an old tin or iron pan for the fire with corn cobs, green hickory, or oak chips.
Cover the hogshead with old quilts and carpets to retain smoke and control heat.
Renew the fire daily, ensuring it smolders without heating the meat.
When thoroughly cured, sew each ham in a thick cotton bag and hang in a cool, dry place.
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.
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Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,400 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Ham + clovetop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,666 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
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Ham + macetop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,050 recipes
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Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together17,182 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,084 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Fine salt
- Draws out moisture and preserves the meat while curing it.
- Brown sugar
- Balances the salt and adds sweetness and flavour to the cured meat.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the cure keep its pink colour and inhibits spoilage during curing.
The step that matters
Renew the fire daily at a smolder. If the fire burns hot, the meat cooks and softens rather than drying slowly, and the smoke becomes harsh. A low, steady smolder dries and flavours the ham gently.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, sugar, clove):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Allspicefits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sugar, 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.
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