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 ↓
To Cure Hams
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Place the ham skin side down on a board or table in a cool area.
Mix the salt, sugar, and saltpetre together thoroughly.
Cure
Rub the mixture all over each ham, including a little in the hock end around the bone.
Continue rubbing until the meat absorbs no more mixture.
If any mixture remains, use it on the meat after one week, rubbing it in as before.
Let the hams cure for sixteen days before smoking.
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
- Fine salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and helps preserve it during curing.
- Powdered saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives cured ham its characteristic pink colour.
- Brown sugar
- Balances the salt and adds mild sweetness to the cured flavour.
The step that matters
Rubbing until the meat absorbs no more mixture. Salt and cure must penetrate evenly through the thick muscle. Missed areas can spoil or cure unevenly, so the rubbing must be thorough, including the area around the bone.
“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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