Why it works: Ham and molasses work together. They rank in the top 38% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 55 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Curing of Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Cure the meat
Remove heat from the meat and rub coarse sea salt over the hams and shoulders.
Place the hams and shoulders in a hogshead, packing tightly to minimize pickle use.
Make a pickle with 1 pound saltpeter, 2 gallons dark sweet molasses, and enough ground alum and salt to float an egg.
Pour the pickle over the meat.
If the pickle does not cover the meat, make more with water and ground alum salt to float an egg.
Leave the meat in the pickle for at least 6 weeks.
Dry and smoke
After curing, hang the meat to dry.
Smoke the meat for a day or more using chips or cobs.
Bag and finish
Bag the meat in paper or cotton bags lined with paper.
Sprinkle the meat with powdered borax.
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.
-
Ham + molassestop 38% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together55 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Hams and shoulders
- Form the main body of meat that is preserved and flavoured by the cure.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and helps preserve it against spoilage.
- Saltpeter
- Helps the meat keep its pink colour and adds to the preservative effect of the cure.
- Dark sweet molasses
- Adds sweetness and depth of flavour, and helps balance the saltiness of the cure.
- Ground alum
- Firms the texture of the meat during the cure.
The step that matters
Keeping the meat fully submerged in the pickle. Any part of the meat left above the liquid can spoil or cure unevenly, because the brine is what protects and preserves the meat. Checking coverage and topping up with fresh pickle prevents this.
“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
Molasses Sauce32 recipes
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 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.