Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Directions for Curing Ham or Bacon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the hams
Feed hogs on corn for eight weeks before slaughtering.
Rub the outside of each ham with saltpetre and the inside with cayenne pepper.
Mix brown sugar and fine salt; rub this mixture on the pork.
Cure in tubs
Place the meat in large tubs with the skin side down, sprinkling salt between layers.
After eight days, remove the meat, wipe off the salt, and wash the tubs.
Make a pickle with equal parts of salt and molasses, adding saltpetre.
Boil and skim the pickle; let it cool, then pour it over the meat.
Turn the meat daily and baste it with the pickle.
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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Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,225 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Pepper + molassestop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together897 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,401 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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
- Preserves the meat and gives it its characteristic pink colour during curing.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the salt in the dry cure.
- Fine salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the meat while helping to preserve it.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the pickle.
The step that matters
Turning and basting the meat daily. Salt and cure must reach every part of the meat evenly. Turning and basting keep the pickle in contact with all surfaces, so the cure penetrates uniformly and no area is left under-salted.
“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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