Why it works: Pork and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 37% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,579 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Sweet-pickle or Brine-cured Pork
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the brine
Mix all ingredients in water and stir thoroughly.
Prepare the brine a day in advance.
Cure the meat
Place hams at the bottom of a container, followed by shoulders, then bacon and smaller cuts on top.
Cover with boards weighted down with stones or bricks to prevent rusting.
Pour the brine over the meat, ensuring it is completely submerged.
After seven days, remove the meat.
Discard the brine.
Replace the meat in the container.
Re-cover with brine.
Repeat this process every seven days until curing is complete.
If the brine becomes ropy, wash the meat and container.
Boil the brine.
Make a new brine.
Smoke and finish
Once cured, wash the meat in lukewarm water.
String the meat.
Hang it in the smokehouse.
Smoke the meat at a temperature not exceeding 120°F until it reaches a good chestnut color.
Cook the sweet-pickle or brine-cured pork thoroughly before eating.
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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Pork + sugartop 37% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,579 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pork
- The meat being cured, smoked and eaten; its cuts are the product itself.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws water out of the meat and seasons it, helping preserve it during curing.
- Sugar or molasses
- Adds sweetness and flavor that balances the salt in the cure.
- Saltpeter
- Helps the meat keep its pink color and inhibits spoilage bacteria during curing.
The step that matters
Keep the meat fully submerged in brine. Any meat exposed to air can spoil or develop off-flavors during curing. Keeping every piece covered, and reboiling or replacing brine that turns ropy, protects against spoilage.
“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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