Name: How to Sugar-cure Hams
Ingredients: hams; shoulders; side meat; coarse sea salt; sugar

Why it works: Ham and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

How to Sugar-cure Hams

Ingredients

Directions

Spread out the hams, shoulders, and side meat and let them cool in a cellar or a place that won't freeze for 24 hours.
Rub the side meat with coarse sea salt liberally and place it in a pork barrel.
Bulk up the bacon pieces by rubbing them all over with the same salt and sugar mixture.
Let the bacon lie in bulk for two weeks.

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.

Ham + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,084 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Meat + sugartop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,866 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).