Why it works: Ham and syrup work together. They rank in the top 44% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Pickled Meats
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the hams
Cut hams short and round at the butt, with shank cut off above the hock joint to expose marrow.
Ensure hams are uniform in size, averaging between 12 to 20 pounds.
Pack and cover
Pack 300 pounds of hams in each tierce with 22 pounds of coarse sea salt, 3 quarts of syrup, and 12 ounces of saltpetre.
Fill tierces with water or sweet pickle as needed.
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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Ham + syruptop 44% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it, helping preserve the ham.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the meat keep its pink colour during curing.
- Syrup
- Adds sweetness and balances the harshness of the salt.
The step that matters
Packing the hams with salt, syrup and saltpetre. Salt and saltpetre must reach evenly through the whole ham. Uneven packing or uneven sizing leaves some pieces under-cured and others too salty, so the hams are sorted for uniform size first.
“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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