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Italian Pork

A pork leg cured in salt, then stewed in vinegar, sugar, and its own cooking water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and sugar 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 ↓

Italian Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Rub the pork well with coarse sea salt and let it sit in the salt for 7 to 10 days.

Simmer

  1. When ready to cook, place the pork in a large pot and cover it with water.

  2. Simmer the pork for 4 hours, skimming the surface regularly.

  3. Remove the pork and place it on a large dish.

  4. Pour the cooking water into an earthen pan, skim off the fat, and let it cool.

Stew and serve

  1. In a pot, combine 1 pint of vinegar, ½ pound of brown sugar, and 1 pint of the cooled cooking water.

  2. Place the pork in the pot with the skin side down.

  3. Increase the heat and warm the pot lid by placing it near the fire.

  4. Cover the pot tightly and stew the pork for an additional 1.5 hours, basting frequently.

  5. When done, the pork should look glossy, like it has been coated with molasses.

  6. Serve with the gravy.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 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

Fresh pork leg
Provides the meat that becomes tender through long simmering and stewing.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the sauce and caramelises into a glossy glaze on the pork.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar and cuts the richness of the meat.

The step that matters

Skim the fat from the cooking liquid. Fat left in the liquid after it cools will make the gravy greasy and can mask the balance between the sharp vinegar and the sweet sugar.

“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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