Why it works: Ham and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,058 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
High Class Dry Salt Cure
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cure
Mix the coarse sea salt, sugar, black pepper, and saltpetre in a large bowl.
Cure the meat
Rub the mixture thoroughly over the meat.
Place the meat in a container, ensuring it is well covered with the curing mixture.
Let the meat cure for several weeks, turning it occasionally.
Finish
After curing, rinse the meat and allow it to dry before storing.
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 + peppertop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,058 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,401 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,084 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
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 preserves it by inhibiting spoilage microbes.
- Sugar
- Balances the salt's sharpness and feeds the flavour of the cure.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat's pink colour during the long cure.
The step that matters
Covering the meat fully with the cure. Any area left without salt can spoil during the weeks-long cure, because salt must penetrate evenly to draw out moisture and stop bacterial growth.
“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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