Name: Super-excellent Bacon
Ingredients: 14 pounds well-fed pork; 1 ounce saltpetre (fine powder); 3 ounces very brown sugar; 8 ounces coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'), dried and pounded; 4 ounces common salt; 1 pound treacle; 1 ounce ground black pepper (optional); 3 ounces bruised juniper berries (optional)

Why it works: Pork and pepper 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 ↓

Super-excellent Bacon

Ingredients

14 pounds well-fed pork
1 ounce saltpetre (fine powder)
3 ounces very brown sugar
8 ounces coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'), dried and pounded
4 ounces common salt
1 pound treacle
1 ounce ground black pepper (optional)
3 ounces bruised juniper berries (optional)

Directions

Cure the pork

Rub the pork with saltpetre and brown sugar, covering all parts, and let it sit for several hours.
Cover the meat with the mixture of coarse sea salt and common salt.
After four days, add treacle.
Turn the hams daily, basting with the pickle for one month.

Dry and smoke

Hang the hams to drain overnight.
Wrap them in brown paper.
Smoke the hams for one 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.

Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,401 recipes

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

Saltpetre: Preserves the meat and gives the cured ham its characteristic pink colour.
Coarse sea salt: Draws out moisture and seasons the meat, helping to preserve it during curing.
Common salt: Adds salinity to the cure, drawing out moisture and seasoning the meat.
Treacle: Adds sweetness and flavour, and helps the surface brown during smoking.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the salt and helps the cure flavour the meat.

The step that matters

Turn and baste the hams daily. Salt and cure must reach the whole joint evenly. Regular turning and basting keep the pickle in contact with every surface, so the cure penetrates uniformly and no area is left under-preserved.

“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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Super-excellent Bacon