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 ↓
New England Ham with Cereal
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 200°F (93°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Chop the pork cuttings and mix with cereal until you achieve the proper consistency.
Stuff the mixture into the beef bungs and tie securely with twine.
Smoke and check
Smoke the ham starting at 200°F (93°C) for 3 hours, reducing the temperature hourly until reaching 160°F (71°C).
After smoking, weigh the ham 12 hours later; ensure shrinkage does not exceed 5% from the finished green weight.
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 + beeftop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,690 recipes
Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lean pork cuttings
- Provides the meat protein that forms the body of the ham and carries fat for juiciness.
- Cereal
- Absorbs meat juices and fat, helping bind the filling and hold its texture.
- Beef bungs
- Act as the casing that holds the filling in shape during smoking.
The step that matters
Lowering the smoking temperature hour by hour. Starting hot and stepping down gradually helps the ham cook through and reach 160°F without drying the surface too quickly. Checking the internal temperature confirms the ham is done.
“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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