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To Imitate Westphalia Ham

A method for curing pork hams to imitate Westphalia ham using saltpetre, sugar, spices, beer, and smoking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Imitate Westphalia Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Rub the hams with equal parts powdered saltpetre and brown sugar.

  2. Prepare a pickle by boiling fine salt, brown sugar, black pepper, cloves, sal prunella, and beer together until it can float an egg.

  3. Pour the hot pickle over the hams and let them soak for two weeks, turning and basting them with the liquid two to three times daily.

  4. Remove the hams after two weeks.

Smoke and store

  1. Rub the hams with bran.

  2. Smoke the hams for two weeks.

  3. Trim the underside of the thick part for a flat appearance.

  4. Loosen the skin.

  5. Sew the skin back on.

  6. Store the hams in a barrel of fine charcoal, changing the ashes frequently and wiping the hams when removed.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pork + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,638 recipes

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

  3. Clove + beertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together284 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pork + beertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together316 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Pork + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pork hams
The main meat that is cured, smoked and stored to become the finished ham.
Powdered saltpetre
Cures the meat and helps it keep its pink colour and firm texture during curing.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the salt in the rub and the pickle.
Fine salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the pickle soak.
Stale strong beer or porter
Adds malty flavour and liquid to the pickle that the hams soak in.

The step that matters

Testing the pickle until it floats an egg. The pickle must be strong enough in salt and sugar to cure the meat evenly. If it is too weak, the cure may not penetrate well and the ham can spoil.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, ham, sugar, pepper, beer. 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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