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To Cure Hams

This recipe describes a method for curing a ham using saltpetre, sea salt, sal-prunel, sugar, bran, and smoking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,084 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

To Cure Hams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ham

  1. Hang the ham for a day or two.

  2. Sprinkle the ham with a little salt.

  3. Drain the ham for another day.

Cure

  1. Mix saltpetre, sea salt, sal-prunel, and sugar well.

  2. Rub the mixture into the ham daily for four days, turning it each day.

  3. Continue turning small hams for three weeks.

  4. For large hams, continue turning for a week longer without rubbing.

  5. Drain the ham before drying.

Dry and smoke

  1. Cover the ham with bran.

  2. Smoke the ham for ten days.

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. Sugar + hamtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,084 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Saltpetre
Helps cure the meat and gives it its characteristic pink colour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the ham while curing it.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt and adds sweetness to the cured flavour.
Ham (leg of a hog)
The main meat that is salted, cured, dried and smoked.

The step that matters

Turning the ham during the cure. Salt and curing mixture penetrate the meat slowly, so uneven coverage or skipped turning can leave parts under-cured and prone to spoilage. Regular turning spreads the cure evenly through the joint.

“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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