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To Salt Ham

This recipe describes curing a ham in a mixture of salt, sugar, spices, and saltpetre over several weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Salt Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the ham

  1. Rub 3 ounces of coarse sea salt into the ham and let it sit in a covered pan for 2 days.

  2. Mix 6 ounces of common salt, ½ pound of coarse sea salt, ½ pound of coarse sugar, 2 ounces of allspice, 2 ounces of black pepper, and 3 ounces of saltpetre, then pound finely.

  3. Rub the mixture into the ham for about 1 hour, ensuring every part is covered, including the shank bone.

  4. Place the ham in a clean pan with the remaining brine and cover it.

  5. Turn the ham daily and pour fresh brine over it as needed.

  6. Let the ham cure in salt for about 1 month.

Dry and smoke

  1. After curing, hang the ham to dry in a kitchen.

  2. Optionally, smoke the ham using wood smoke if available.

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. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Sugar + allspicetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 moisture out of the meat and seasons it, slowing bacterial growth during curing.
Common salt
Penetrates the meat and seasons it while helping to preserve it during curing.
Coarse sugar
Balances the saltiness and adds mild sweetness to the cured flavour.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the cured colour and flavour of the meat during long curing.
Black pepper
Adds sharp aromatic heat that complements the cured pork.

The step that matters

Rubbing the cure over every part of the ham. Salt penetrates only as far as it reaches. Missed areas, especially near the shank bone, can cure unevenly and allow spoilage, so the mixture must cover the whole leg.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, pepper):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicethe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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