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Pumpkin with Salt Meat

A baked pumpkin dish layered with salt pork, brown sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pumpkin and pork work together. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 312 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Pumpkin with Salt Meat

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Peel the pumpkin and cut it into thin slices.

  2. Arrange the slices in a baking dish, leaving space in the middle for the salt pork.

  3. Soak the salt pork in cold water overnight.

  4. Score the salt pork.

Bake

  1. Place the salt pork in the center of the dish.

  2. Sprinkle the brown sugar over the pumpkin.

  3. Add the water.

  4. Cover and cook slowly in a 300°F (150°C) oven for one hour.

  5. Remove the cover.

  6. Cook for an additional hour, adding more water as it evaporates.

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. Pumpkin + porktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Pumpkin + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,350 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Pork + sugartop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,579 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

Pumpkin
Forms the bulk of the dish and softens into tender, sweet flesh as it cooks.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the pumpkin as it renders during cooking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pumpkin slices caramelize at the edges.

The step that matters

Cook slowly and keep adding water. Slow, covered cooking at low heat lets the pumpkin become tender without scorching. Once the cover is removed, water evaporates and the sugar can burn, so adding water keeps the dish moist and prevents sticking.

Swap the pumpkin

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sugar. 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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