Why it works: Pork and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 37% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,579 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
A Genuine Yorkshire Receipt for Curing Hams and Bacon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pig
Fast the pig for 24 hours before killing.
After killing and scalding, hang the pig for 12 hours before cutting.
Remove any blood and broken vessels from the meat.
Cure the meat
For every 14 pounds of meat, mix 1 pound of salt, 1¼ ounces of saltpetre, and ½ ounce of sugar.
Warm the salt slightly before use.
Rub the sugar and saltpetre into the meat.
Apply the salt in stages as it dissolves.
Let the meat rest on clean straw or a cold brick floor for 2 to 3 weeks.
Dry and store
Once cured, hang the meat in a cool, dry place with good air circulation until completely dry.
Store the cured meat in a chest surrounded by clean straw.
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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Pork + sugartop 37% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Pork
- Is the meat that is cured, dried and preserved.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and preserves it against spoilage.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives cured ham its characteristic pink colour.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the salt and adds mild sweetness to the cure.
The step that matters
Apply the salt in stages as it dissolves. Salt must penetrate evenly as it dissolves; adding it all at once can leave the surface over-salted and the interior under-cured, causing uneven preservation.
“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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