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Westphalian Ham, Mock

A preserved ham cured with saltpetre, sugar, spices, and smoked over juniper wood.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Westphalian Ham, Mock

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the ham

  1. Rub each ham with 1½ ounces of pounded saltpetre and 1½ ounces of moist sugar.

  2. Let the meat sit for 24 hours.

  3. In a stewpan, combine 1 pound of strong stale beer, 1 pound of coarse sea salt, 1 pound of bay salt, ½ pound of brown sugar, 1 ounce of black pepper, and 1 ounce of pounded cloves. Boil the mixture and skim it.

  4. Pour the mixture hot over the ham.

  5. Turn and rub the ham in the liquid twice a day for two weeks.

  6. Alternatively, boil 2 gallons of soft water with 2 pounds of common salt, 2 ounces of bay salt, 2 ounces of saltpetre, and a handful of finely shredded bay leaves.

  7. Pour the boiling liquid over the ham.

  8. Turn and rub it daily.

Smoke

  1. Smoke the hams over burning juniper wood.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Beer + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together284 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

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

Sugar and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Saltpetre
Cures the meat and helps give it the characteristic pink colour and cured flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture and balances the salt in the cure.
Bay salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it through the cure.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and helps draw out moisture during curing.
Strong stale beer
Adds liquid and malty, bitter depth to the pickling brine.

The step that matters

Boil the brine and skim it before pouring it over the ham. Boiling dissolves the salts and sugar fully so the cure penetrates evenly, and skimming removes impurities that would otherwise spoil the liquid and flavour the meat unevenly.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Gingerfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

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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