Name: Westphalia Bacon
Ingredients: 1 middle of prime pork (a side with the hand and ham cut out, with ribs); ½ cup coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 2 lbs common salt; 2 oz saltpetre; 2 lbs coarse sugar; 1 handful bay leaves, chopped small; 1 gallon river water

Why it works: Pork and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,638 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Westphalia Bacon

Ingredients

1 middle of prime pork (a side with the hand and ham cut out, with ribs)
½ cup coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
2 lbs common salt
2 oz saltpetre
2 lbs coarse sugar
1 handful bay leaves, chopped small
1 gallon river water

Directions

Salt the pork

Lay the pork in a salting trough with common salt for 12 to 14 hours.
Remove the pork, wipe it dry, and wash out the trough.

Make and apply the brine

Boil the river water, bay salt, common salt, saltpetre, coarse sugar, and bay leaves for 10 minutes.
Skim the mixture well, let it cool, and pour it over the pork.
Rub the mixture into the pork twice a day, turning it often for 14 days.

Dry and smoke

After 14 days, remove the pork from the brine, wipe it dry with cloths, and hang it in the air for 24 hours.
Smoke the pork for at least 3 weeks.

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.

Pork + hamtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,638 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,084 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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: Forms the meat that is salted, cured and smoked into bacon.
Common salt: Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during curing.
Saltpetre: Helps preserve the meat and gives cured bacon its pink colour.
Coarse sugar: Balances the salt and adds sweetness to the cure.
Bay leaves: Adds a subtle aroma to the cure.

The step that matters

Rubbing the brine in twice a day for 14 days. Salt must penetrate evenly through the thick cut of meat. Turning the pork and reapplying the cure keeps the salt distributed, so the centre cures as well as the surface and the meat does not spoil.

“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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Westphalia Bacon