Skip to main content
Main

Westphalia Hams

A large pork leg cured with saltpetre, sea salt, sugar, juniper berries, vinegar, and smoked over oak, fern, and grass turfs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Westphalia Hams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Shape the pork legs to be longer and narrower, with a peak at the large end, and flatten between weighted boards.

  2. Rub the meat with the saltpetre, coarse sea salt, coarse sugar, bay salt, and bruised juniper berries.

  3. Turn the meat daily for three days.

Cure and brine

  1. After three days, boil the saltpetre, coarse sea salt, coarse sugar, bay salt, juniper berries, pickling vinegar, and water together.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then pour it over the meat and baste for two weeks.

Dry, hang and smoke

  1. After two weeks, remove the meat and dry it well.

  2. Hang the meat in fresh air for at least a week.

  3. Smoke the meat for one month using oak logs, fern, and grass turfs.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Pork + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Pork + sugartop 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

Pork legs
The main meat; its size and shape set the length of curing, drying and smoking.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat and gives the cured ham its characteristic pink color.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during curing, aiding preservation.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt and softens the sharpness of the cure.
Juniper berries
Add a resinous, aromatic flavor to the cure.
Pickling vinegar
Adds acidity to the brine, sharpening flavor and supporting preservation.

The step that matters

Drying the meat well after the two-week basting. Surface moisture left on the cured meat can encourage spoilage during hanging. Drying thoroughly before hanging helps the ham keep safely while it air-dries.

“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.

More westphalian ham recipes

Croquettes 3 See all 17 →

You might also like

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes