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 ↓
Mutton Hams
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and cure
Cut the hind quarter of mutton like a ham.
Mix saltpetre, coarse sugar, and common salt.
Rub the mixture onto the ham.
Place the ham skin-side down in a hollow tray.
Baste the ham every day for two weeks.
Dry and serve
Roll the ham in sawdust and hang it in a dry place.
Cut it into rashers when ready to serve.
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
- Is the main meat that is cured and dried into ham.
- Saltpetre
- Helps keep the meat pink and inhibits spoilage bacteria during curing.
- Common salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it while slowing spoilage.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the harshness of the salt and adds a mild sweetness.
The step that matters
Basting the ham every day. Daily basting keeps the salt and sugar cure in contact with the meat so it penetrates evenly over two weeks. Uneven curing can leave thick areas under-salted and more vulnerable 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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