Why it works: Mutton and sugar work together. They rank in the top 34% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 726 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Mullon Ham
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the ham
Hang the mutton leg for two days.
In a stew-pan, mix bay salt, common salt, saltpetre, and coarse sugar, then heat the mixture until hot.
Rub the mixture well into the ham.
Cure
Turn the ham in the brine every day.
After four days, add 2 ounces more common salt.
After twelve days, remove the ham.
Dry, smoke and serve
Dry the ham.
Hang it in wood smoke for one week.
Slice the ham and serve with stewed cabbage, mashed potatoes, or eggs.
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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Mutton + sugartop 34% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together726 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mutton leg
- Forms the meat that is cured and smoked into ham.
- Bay salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during curing.
- Common salt
- Preserves the meat and seasons it, slowing spoilage during the cure.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives the cured ham its characteristic color.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the saltiness and adds mild sweetness to the cure.
The step that matters
Rubbing and turning the cure. Salt and saltpetre must reach all parts of the meat evenly. Thorough rubbing and daily turning in the brine keep the cure distributed, so no area is left under-salted and open to spoilage.
“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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