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 Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brine
Boil the water, salt, sugar, saltpeter, pearl ash, and molasses together.
Skim the mixture well.
Allow it to cool.
Apply the brine
Pour the cooled brine over the beef or pork.
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
- Salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and carries seasoning into it, helping preserve and firm the flesh.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the brine.
- Saltpeter
- Gives cured meat its pink color and helps inhibit spoilage bacteria.
- Molasses
- Adds depth of flavor and a dark color to the cured meat.
The step that matters
Skim the mixture well. Boiling the brine draws impurities and coagulated proteins to the surface as foam. Removing them keeps the brine clear and prevents off flavors and cloudiness in the finished cure.
“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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