Why it works: Meat and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 34% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,866 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
To Cure Hams
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brine
Boil the water and dissolve the salt, saltpetre, brown sugar, and potash.
Cool the brine.
Cure and dry
Let the hams sit in the brine for 2 days.
Submerge the hams in the brine for 6 weeks.
Dry the hams for several days before smoking.
Rub the hams with fine salt before packing.
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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Meat + sugartop 34% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,866 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws water out of the meat and seasons it, slowing spoilage during curing.
- Saltpetre
- Supports a long cure by preserving the meat's color and inhibiting spoilage bacteria.
- Brown sugar
- Balances the saltiness and adds mild sweetness and flavour to the cured meat.
The step that matters
Submerge the hams in the brine for 6 weeks. The brine must fully cover the hams for the whole period. Salt penetrates slowly, and any exposed meat can spoil or cure unevenly.
“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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