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Preserve

Prepared Ham

A method for curing and cooking ham using salt, sugar, saltpeter, and ground meats, then drying and waxing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Prepared Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Mix 4 pounds of coarse sea salt, 2½ ounces of saltpeter, and 8 ounces of sugar with 100 pounds of dry-cured meats.

  2. Pack the mixture tightly in tierces and let it stand overnight.

  3. Fill the tierces completely the next morning and seal tightly.

Grind and stuff

  1. Grind 75 pounds of pork cheeks through a 7/64-inch plate and the remaining meats through a 1-inch plate.

  2. Thoroughly mix all the ground meats and stuff into cotton bags weighing about 5 pounds each.

Cook and dry

  1. Cook the bags in water at 155°F to 160°F for about four hours.

  2. Hang the bags in a drying room for at least ten hours.

Coat and chill

  1. Dip the cloth coverings in heated paraffin wax at 200°F for 30 seconds, then allow to drip.

  2. Hang the bags in a cooler for several hours before shipping.

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. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Meat + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Meat + sugartop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + porktop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Saltpeter
Helps give the cured meat its characteristic pink color and cured flavor.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons and preserves the meat by drawing out moisture.
Sugar
Balances the saltiness and adds a mild sweetness.
Dry-cured lean pork trimmings
Lean meat that forms the body of the mixture.

The step that matters

Cooking the bags in water at 155°F to 160°F. Holding the water at this low, steady temperature cooks the meat through gently. Higher heat can toughen the proteins and render out fat, leaving the ham dry and crumbly.

“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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