Why it works: Sugar and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 32% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,401 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Dry Curing Pork
Ingredients
Directions
Salt and drain
Rub each piece of meat with fine clean salt.
Let it sit for 6 to 24 hours to drain bloody serum.
Mix the dry-curing mixture thoroughly.
Rub each piece of meat with the mixture, ensuring it penetrates around the ends of the bones.
Cure
Pile the meat skin side down in a cool, airy place, avoiding damp areas.
Do not stack the meat more than 3 feet high.
Apply the mixture again after 3 days if needed.
Cure a 14-pound ham for 3 weeks, or 1.5 days for each pound.
Wash, dry and smoke
Wash each piece with warm water to remove excess curing mixture.
Dry it.
Hang the meat up for smoking.
Smoke with hickory, oak, or apple wood, avoiding pine wood.
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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Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,401 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- Fine clean salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and helps preserve it during curing.
- White or brown sugar
- Balances the salt and adds sweetness and flavour to the cured surface.
- White or black pepper
- Adds aroma and sharp flavour to the cure.
- Red pepper
- Adds heat and a warm, pungent flavour to the cure.
The step that matters
Rubbing the cure into every part of the meat. Salt only preserves where it reaches. Working the mixture around the bone ends and into every surface keeps curing even and prevents spoilage in spots the cure missed.
“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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