Name: Dry Salt Bacon Cured Two Ways
Ingredients: 5.2% coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 1.7% sugar; 0.28% saltpetre; 100 pieces of pork averaging 10.5 pounds each

Why it works: Sugar and pork 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 Salt Bacon Cured Two Ways

Ingredients

5.2% coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
1.7% sugar
0.28% saltpetre
100 pieces of pork averaging 10.5 pounds each

Directions

Prepare the cure

Calculate the amount of salt, sugar, and saltpetre based on the total weight of the meat.
Mix the salt, sugar, and saltpetre thoroughly.

Cure and smoke

Rub the mixture evenly over the meat pieces.
Place the meat in a cool, dry place to cure for the recommended time.
After curing, smoke the meat in a smokehouse until desired flavor is achieved.

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.

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

Coarse sea salt: Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during curing.
Sugar: Balances the salt and adds mild sweetness to the finished bacon.
Saltpetre: Helps preserve the meat's pink colour during curing.

The step that matters

Weigh the cure ingredients against the total meat weight. Salt and saltpetre are measured as percentages of meat weight, so the amounts must be calculated from the total weight of all the pork. Too much salt or saltpetre makes the bacon harsh and unsafe, while too little fails to preserve it.

“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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Dry Salt Bacon Cured Two Ways