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To Cure Hams, — M. Ude’s Receipt.

A method for curing hams using salt, sugar, saltpetre, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

To Cure Hams, — M. Ude’s Receipt.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the round bone from the hams.

  2. Rub the hams well with coarse sea salt.

  3. Let the hams drain for three days.

  4. Dry the hams.

Cure

  1. Mix the moist sugar, coarse sea salt, and saltpetre.

  2. Rub the mixture thoroughly into the hams.

  3. Place the hams in a trough and cover them as you would other hams.

Finish

  1. After three days, pour a bottle of good vinegar over the hams.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Ham + vinegartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  3. 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
The main meat that is preserved through salting and curing.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and helps preserve it.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the cure.
Saltpetre
Acts as a curing agent that helps preserve the meat and fix its color.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and a sharp flavor to the cured hams.

The step that matters

Rubbing the cure thoroughly into the hams. Salt and nitrates only preserve the meat they actually reach, so uneven rubbing leaves thin or untreated areas that can spoil. Thorough coverage lets the cure penetrate evenly.

“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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