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Ham, Cured with Hot Pickle

Ham cured by rubbing with saltpetre, sugar, and spices, then boiled in a hot pickle mixture and smoked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ham, Cured with Hot Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the ham

  1. Rub an 18-pound ham with 1.5 ounces of pounded saltpetre and 1.5 ounces of brown sugar.

  2. Leave the ham until the next day.

  3. In a saucepan, combine 1 quart of strong beer or porter, 2 pounds of salt, 0.5 pound of brown sugar, 1 ounce of black pepper, 1 ounce of allspice, and a small piece of sal prunella.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil and pour it over the ham.

  5. Let the ham sit for three weeks, rubbing it in twice or three times daily.

Finish and smoke

  1. Drain the ham and dredge it, then smoke it for two weeks if possible.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Beer + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together940 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Beer + allspicetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together108 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Sugar + beertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together699 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + allspicetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Saltpetre
Helps the ham keep its pink colour and inhibits spoilage during the long cure.
Salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat, slowing bacterial growth during curing.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the salt, while feeding a mild flavour to the crust.
Strong beer or porter
Carries the cure into the ham and adds malty, roasted flavour.

The step that matters

Rubbing the ham during the three-week cure. Regular rubbing redistributes the salt and saltpetre mixture across the surface and keeps the cure in contact with the meat, so the ham cures evenly rather than unevenly at the surface.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, beer, pepper):

  1. Gingerfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, beer, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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