Why it works: Pork and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 37% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,579 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
To Pickle Pork
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pork
Remove all ribs from the pork and cut it into pieces of about 3 lbs each.
Pack the pork tightly in a barrel and salt it well with coarse sea salt.
Brine and weigh down
Boil a strong brine with coarse sea salt, let it cool, then pour it over the meat.
Place a weight on top to keep the meat submerged.
Storage note
To keep the pork, do not add saltpetre as it affects the flavor.
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 + sugartop 37% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- The main meat, which the salt cures and firms as it absorbs seasoning and draws out moisture.
- Coarse sea salt
- Preserves the meat by drawing out moisture and seasoning it throughout during the cure.
The step that matters
Keep the pork fully submerged in the brine. Meat exposed above the brine can spoil and cure unevenly, because salt only preserves and seasons the parts it reaches. A weight keeps every piece under the liquid.
“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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