Why it works: Sugar and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,084 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Meats for Potted Ham
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Mix the salt, sugar, and saltpeter in a large container.
Submerge the hams in the pickle mixture.
For a 10-pound ham, let it cure for 40 days; for a 15-pound ham, 60 days; for a 20-pound ham, 72 days.
Finish
After curing, wash the hams and hang them in a smokehouse for 24 hours before serving.
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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Sugar + hamtop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,084 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Hams
- The meat that is preserved, seasoned and firmed by the cure over the long curing period.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and penetrates it, slowing spoilage and seasoning the ham.
- Granulated sugar
- Balances the harshness of the salt and adds mild sweetness to the cured meat.
- Saltpeter
- Acts as a curing agent that helps preserve the meat and gives it a pink color.
The step that matters
Match the curing time to the ham's weight. Cure must penetrate fully to the center of the meat. Curing a larger ham for too short a time can leave the center uncured and unsafe, so the time should follow the ham's weight.
“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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