Why it works: Sugar and beer work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 699 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Hams, to Cure
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Rub the hams well with salt the day before pickling and drain the brine.
In a saucepan, combine the common salt, coarse sugar, coarse sea salt, and strong beer; boil for 15 minutes.
Pickle and smoke
Pour the mixture over the hams and let them pickle for 1 month, turning and rubbing them daily.
After pickling, smoke the hams for 1 month.
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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Sugar + beertop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together699 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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 meat and seasons it during the cure.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the saltiness and adds sweetness to the cured meat.
- Coarse sea salt
- Adds salt for curing and seasoning, helping preserve the meat.
- Strong beer
- Carries the cure into the meat and adds malty flavour.
The step that matters
Turning and rubbing the hams daily during the month-long pickle. Salt penetrates unevenly if the brine does not reach every surface. Turning and rubbing redistributes the cure, so the meat cures evenly and avoids spoiled or salty patches.
“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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