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Hams

This recipe describes brining and smoking hams for preservation.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Hams

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the hams

  1. Make a brine strong enough to float a potato.

  2. Dissolve saltpetre in warm water and add to the brine.

  3. Add sugar until the mixture is slightly sweet.

  4. Soak the hams in the brine for 10 to 12 days.

Smoke and store

  1. Remove the hams and let them dry thoroughly.

  2. Smoke the hams until they are a deep brown.

  3. Wrap the hams in cotton cloth or brown paper.

  4. Pack the hams in a box or barrel with enough coarse salt to completely cover them.

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. 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
Provide the meat that is cured, smoked and preserved.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat while preserving it during curing.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat and gives the cured ham its characteristic pink colour.
Sugar
Adds mild sweetness that balances the salt in the brine.

The step that matters

Soak the hams in the brine for 10 to 12 days. The brine must fully penetrate the hams to cure them evenly. Too short a soak leaves the centre under-salted and unpreserved, while the long soak relies on salt concentration to draw out moisture and stop bacterial growth.

“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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