Name: Another Way to Cure Hams
Ingredients: 1 pound common salt; ½ pound coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); ½ pound saltpetre; 1 pound molasses; 2 cups vinegar

Why it works: Molasses and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,253 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Another Way to Cure Hams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cure

Boil the common salt, coarse sea salt, saltpetre, molasses, and vinegar together.
Pour the hot mixture over the ham.

Cure and smoke

Let the ham sit for one month, turning it every day and basting it well.
After a month, hang the ham over the smoke of wood in a small enclosure.

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.

Molasses + vinegartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,253 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Common salt: Draws moisture out of the meat and preserves it during the long cure.
Coarse sea salt: Adds salt that penetrates the meat and helps preserve it during curing.
Saltpetre: Acts as a curing agent that helps preserve the meat and keeps its color.
Molasses: Adds sweetness and a deep flavor that balances the salt.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the cure.

The step that matters

Turning and basting the ham every day. The salt cure must reach every part of the meat to preserve it evenly. Turning and basting redistribute the liquid cure, so it penetrates uniformly and the surface does not stay under-salted 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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Another Way to Cure Hams