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To Cure Mutton Ham

A method for curing a mutton hind quarter into ham using saltpetre, salt, sugar, spices, and smoking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Cure Mutton Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Cut the hind quarter of mutton into the shape of a ham.

  2. Pound the saltpetre with the coarse salt and brown sugar.

  3. Rub the ham well with this mixture, stuffing the shank hole with salt and sugar.

  4. Let it lie for two weeks.

  5. Rub the mixture onto the ham every 2-3 days.

  6. Press the ham with a weight for one day.

Smoke and dry

  1. Smoke the ham with sawdust for 10-15 days.

  2. Hang the ham to dry in the kitchen.

Soak, boil and serve

  1. If boiling soon after smoking, soak it for 1 hour.

  2. If smoked longer, soak it for several hours.

  3. Put the ham in cold water.

  4. Boil gently for 2 hours.

  5. Serve cold for breakfast, luncheon, or supper.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. White pepper + clovetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together752 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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

Mutton
Forms the ham itself, and its lean meat is what the cure and smoke transform.
Saltpetre
Helps keep the meat pink and cured-tasting during long curing and smoking.
Coarse salt
Draws out moisture and preserves the meat during the long cure.
Brown sugar
Balances the salt with sweetness and softens the harshness of the cure.

The step that matters

Rubbing the cure in evenly and stuffing the shank hole. Salt penetrates meat only as far as it reaches, so thin or missed spots can spoil or cure unevenly. Packing the shank hole ensures the bone end, which is slowest to cure, gets the same protection as the surface.

Swap the white pepper

The recipe marks white pepper as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, sugar, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, sugar, clove, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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