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 ↓
Dry-cured Pork
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cure
Mix the salt, sugar, and saltpeter thoroughly.
Rub and pack
Rub the meat with one-third of the mixture every three days.
Pack the meat in a barrel or tight box.
Rest the meat
After the last rubbing, let the meat lie in the barrel for a week to ten days.
Transfer the meat between barrels each time it is rubbed.
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
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and helps preserve it during the long cure.
- Granulated sugar
- Balances the harshness of the salt and adds a mild sweetness to the finished meat.
- Saltpeter
- Helps preserve the meat's color and inhibits bacterial growth during the long cure.
The step that matters
Rubbing the meat every three days. Salt and cure draw moisture out and penetrate slowly, so repeated rubbing with one-third of the mixture spreads the cure evenly. Skipping or uneven rubs can leave some areas under-cured and at risk of 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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