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 ↓
For Curing Hams
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brine
Mix the water, coarse sea salt, brown sugar, molasses, saltpetre, and pearl-ash in a large pot.
Boil the mixture and skim off any foam.
Cure the hams
Pour the brine over the hams, ensuring they are fully covered.
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).
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 while helping preserve it.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the meat keep its pink colour and gives it a cured flavour.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the salt.
- Molasses
- Adds depth of flavour, dark colour and extra sweetness.
The step that matters
Pour the brine over the hams, ensuring they are fully covered.. Any part of the ham left out of the brine cures unevenly and can spoil. Full coverage lets salt and curing agents penetrate the meat evenly.
“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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