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Hams Superior to Westphalia

Cured hams seasoned with salt, sugar, saltpetre, and vinegar, then smoked over a wood fire.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Hams Superior to Westphalia

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the hams

  1. Rub the hams well with coarse sea salt.

  2. Let the hams drain for 3 days.

  3. Mix together saltpetre, coarse sugar, and coarse sea salt.

  4. Rub the hams with the mixture.

  5. Place the hams rind-side down in a deep pickling pan.

  6. Cover the hams with the salt and sugar mixture for 3 days.

  7. Pour a bottle of vinegar over the hams.

  8. Turn the hams in the brine daily for 1 month.

  9. Drain the hams.

Smoke

  1. Rub the hams with bran.

  2. Hang the hams high in a chimney over a wood fire to smoke for 1 month.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Ham + vinegartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  3. Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,084 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Hams
The main meat, which is preserved and flavoured through curing and smoking.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it, helping preserve it during curing.
Coarse sugar
Balances the saltiness and softens the harsh edge of the cure.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat and gives it a characteristic cured colour.

The step that matters

Turning the hams in the brine daily. Salt and cure must reach every part of the meat evenly. Turning the hams daily keeps them in contact with the brine, so the cure penetrates uniformly and no area is left under-salted or spoiling.

“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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