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 ↓
Kentish Mode of Cutting Up and Curing a Pig
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pork
Set aside the hams and cheeks for curing separately.
Salt the feet, ears, tail, and eye-parts of the head for immediate eating.
Reserve the blade-bones, ends of the loins, and ribs for sausage meat, and the loin and spare ribs for roasting.
Cure the pork
Mix the saltpetre, sugar, and bay-salt together, then rub the mixture all over the pork.
Cover the bottom of a pickling tub with salt and pack the pork tightly, adding salt between each layer.
If needed, sprinkle a little water to help dissolve the salt into brine, but avoid this if possible.
If after two weeks the brine does not cover the meat, boil a strong brine with salt, saltpetre, sugar, and bay-salt, let it cool, then pour it over the pork.
Place a board with a heavy stone on top of the meat to keep it submerged in the brine.
Serve
After 3 to 4 months, the pork will be ready to serve as pickled 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.
-
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
- Forms the meat that is cured and preserved in the brine.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives cured pork its characteristic pink colour.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and forms the brine that preserves the pork.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the saltiness of the cure and adds mild sweetness.
The step that matters
Keeping the pork submerged in brine. Meat exposed to air above the brine can spoil and turn rancid or discoloured. A weighted board holds the pork under the brine so the cure works evenly throughout the joints.
“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.
You might also like
Pork Cake107 recipes
Roast Pork82 recipes
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.