Why it works: Sugar and pepper 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 Bacon Without Smoking
Ingredients
Directions
Cure the bacon
Mix the coarse sea salt, brown sugar, saltpetre, and black pepper in a bowl.
Rub the mixture thoroughly over the bacon.
Place the bacon in a container, ensuring it is well covered with the curing mixture.
Let it cure for 4 to 6 weeks in a cool place, turning occasionally.
Finish
After curing, rinse the bacon and let it dry before using.
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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Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,401 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and pepper 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
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the bacon while helping preserve the meat during curing.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the cure.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat's pink colour and inhibits spoilage bacteria during the long cure.
- Black pepper
- Adds aroma and a mild heat to the finished bacon.
The step that matters
Keep the bacon fully covered in the cure for the whole curing period. Salt and curing agents only penetrate and preserve meat where they make contact. Any exposed area can spoil or cure unevenly, so the bacon must stay coated and be turned during the weeks-long cure.
“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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