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Vtestphalia Hams Eclipsed

A large pork leg cured with saltpetre, sugar, salt, vinegar, and shallots, then smoked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and shallot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,374 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Vtestphalia Hams Eclipsed

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Mix saltpetre, sugar, rock salt, and bay salt.

  2. Rub the mixture into the meat daily for 4 days, turning it each time.

  3. Bring the vinegar and shallot to a boil, then let it cool.

  4. Add the cooled vinegar to the meat and turn it daily for 1 month.

Drain and smoke

  1. After a month, remove the meat from the pickle and hang it to drip for 24 hours.

  2. Turn the ham end for end at least twice a week.

  3. Smoke the ham for 1 month using oak logs, ferns, and beech chips.

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. Vinegar + shallottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Pork + shallottop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,316 recipes

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

  4. Pork + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Sugar + shallottop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Saltpetre
Helps cure the meat and keeps its pink colour during long curing.
Sugar
Balances the salt and adds sweetness to the cured flavour.
Rock salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it through the cure.
Pickling vinegar
Adds acidity to the pickle and contributes to the tangy cured flavour.
Pork leg
The main meat that the cure and smoke penetrate and preserve.

The step that matters

Turning the meat during the cure. Salt and curing agents penetrate unevenly, so turning the meat daily keeps the brine in contact with all surfaces and helps the cure reach the centre evenly.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sugar, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sugar, vinegar. 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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