Why it works: Ham and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,084 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
A Pickle for Ham, Beef, Tongue, Bacon, Etc
Ingredients
Directions
Cure the hams
Hang the hams for 1 day.
Rub 2 ounces of sal prunella, 2 ounces of saltpetre, and 1 pound of coarse sea salt into each ham.
Place the hams in a deep pan.
Turn and rub the hams daily for 3 days.
Make the pickle
Boil 3 gallons of water, 4 pounds of common salt, 4 pounds of coarse sea salt, and 7 pounds of moist sugar together.
Skim the mixture thoroughly and boil it for 20 minutes.
Pour the hot pickle over the meat.
Pickle and finish
Change the hams' positions.
After 3 weeks, drain the hams.
Dry the hams.
Smoke the hams if possible.
Boil the pickle each time it is used, skimming it each time.
Keep the pickle tightly corked.
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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Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 that is cured, firmed, and preserved by the brine over several weeks.
- Sal prunella
- Fused saltpetre-based curing agent that helps preserve the meat and sets its colour.
- Saltpetre
- Curing agent that preserves the meat and helps give cured ham its pink colour.
- Common salt
- Draws water out of the meat and seasons it, helping to preserve it in the brine.
- Moist sugar
- Balances the saltiness with sweetness and adds flavour to the cured meat.
The step that matters
Boiling and skimming the pickle. Boiling dissolves the salts and sugar fully and skimming removes impurities that could spoil the brine. The pickle must be reboiled and skimmed each use to keep it safe and clean.
“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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