Why it works: Pork and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,638 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓
To Cure Hams
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the ham
Sprinkle a handful of coarse sea salt on the pork to draw out the blood; do not use this brine.
Wipe the meat with a dry cloth.
Cure
Mix saltpetre, common salt, and coarse brown sugar together.
Rub the mixture well into the ham.
Let the ham sit in this pickle for one month, turning and basting it every day.
Smoke and dry
Hang the ham in a wood smoke in a dry place, away from heat.
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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Pork + hamtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,638 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Sugar + hamtop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,084 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Sugar + porktop 37% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,579 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Saltpetre
- Preserves the meat and gives cured ham its characteristic pink colour.
- Common salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and helps preserve it during curing.
- Coarse brown sugar
- Balances the saltiness and adds a mild sweetness to the cured ham.
The step that matters
Turning and basting the ham daily. The cure must reach every part of the meat evenly. Daily turning and basting redistributes the salt and sugar mixture and its liquid, so thick or lower sections do not cure unevenly or spoil.
“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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