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To Pickle Cheeks Op Bacon and Hams

A pickled pork dish seasoned with salt, sugar, saltpetre, pepper, and vinegar, then smoked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,121 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Pickle Cheeks Op Bacon and Hams

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the pork

  1. Mix the salt, sugar, saltpetre, and black pepper (if using) thoroughly.

  2. Rub the mixture all over the pork.

  3. Place the pork in a deep pickling pan with the rind facing down.

  4. Cover the pork with the salt and sugar mixture and let it sit for 3 days.

Brine

  1. After 3 days, discard the brine and pour a bottle of vinegar over the pork.

  2. Turn the pork in the brine daily for 4 to 5 weeks.

Smoke

  1. After salting, drain the pork well, rub it with bran, and hang it in a chimney over a wood fire to smoke for 1 month.

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. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + porktop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,579 recipes

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

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

Common salt
Draws moisture out of the pork and preserves it while seasoning the meat.
Coarse sugar
Balances the saltiness with mild sweetness and softens the harshness of the cure.
Saltpetre
Acts as a curing agent that helps preserve the meat and keeps its colour.
Vinegar (in the method)
Adds acidity to the brine, contributing sharpness and helping preserve the pork.
Pork
The cut being cured; it absorbs salt and sugar and takes on flavour during curing.

The step that matters

Rub and cover the pork fully with the salt and sugar mixture. Salt draws water out of the meat and carries the cure inward. Uneven coverage leaves spots that cure poorly and may spoil, so every surface needs contact with the mixture.

“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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