Why it works: Pepper and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 32% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,401 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
To Cure a Ham
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cure
Mix all ingredients together.
Rub the mixture onto the ham.
Cure and smoke
Trim the ham and rub it every day for a month.
Hang the ham in a chimney where wood is burned.
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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Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,401 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Saltpetre
- Helps the meat keep its pink color and inhibits spoilage bacteria during the long cure.
- Common salt
- Draws out moisture and preserves the ham while the cure penetrates the meat.
- Brown sugar
- Balances the sharpness of the salt and adds a mild sweetness to the crust.
- Ground black pepper
- Adds a sharp, aromatic flavor to the outer layer of the ham.
- Juniper berries
- Contribute a resinous, piney aroma that flavors the surface of the ham.
The step that matters
Rubbing the ham every day. Salt and curing agents penetrate meat slowly, and the surface dries and loses coverage over time. Daily rubbing keeps the cure in contact with the meat so the curing is even and the ham is preserved throughout.
“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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