Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓
Prussian Hams
Ingredients
Directions
Cure the pork
Three days after the pork is killed, rub it well with saltpetre.
Mix the coarse sea salt, treacle, marjoram, thyme, and bay leaves.
Continue rubbing and basting the meat with this mixture for one week, turning it over daily.
Brine and rest
After a week, cover the meat with an inch of common salt and let it sit until the salt and brine are well mixed.
Boil the entire pickle.
Pour the pickle over the meat while it is hot but not scalding.
Let it sit for another fortnight.
Smoke
Smoke it without wiping for six to seven days, starting with gentle heat for the first six hours.
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.
-
Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,225 recipes
Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).
-
Pork + thymetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,108 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
-
Pork + marjoramtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together883 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Leg of pork
- Provides the thick, fatty meat that the cure penetrates and that becomes the finished ham.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and preserves it while the cure penetrates.
- Treacle
- Adds sweetness and depth, and helps the surface brown during smoking.
- Marjoram, thyme and bay leaves
- Contribute herbal aroma to the cure mixture.
The step that matters
Smoking with gentle heat at the start. Low heat in the first hours dries the surface slowly, so the smoke adheres and the meat is not cooked through or hardened before the cure has settled.
“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.
You might also like
Pork Cake107 recipes
Roast Pork82 recipes
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.