Name: Westphalia Hams
Ingredients: 100 parts water; 4 parts coarse sea salt; 2 parts brown sugar; 1 part Barbadoes tar; 1 part spirits of wine; 3 tablespoons of the mixture; Saltpetre (as needed for curing)

Why it works: Spirit and wine work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 701 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Westphalia Hams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brine

In a large container, dissolve 4 parts coarse sea salt and 2 parts brown sugar in 100 parts water.
Add 1 part Barbados tar and 1 part spirits of wine to the mixture, then mix well and let it stand for several days.

Cure the ham

Take 3 tablespoons of the mixture and rub it into the ham along with the necessary saltpetre for curing.

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.

Spirit + winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together701 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Sugar + spirittop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together602 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together9,581 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

Coarse sea salt: Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it, helping the cure take hold.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the salt.
Saltpetre: Helps the curing process set the meat's colour and preserve it.

“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.