Name: Another Way to Cure Hams
Ingredients: 2 hams (16 pounds each); 1¼ pounds brown sugar; 3 ounces powdered saltpetre; 1 pound coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 1 pound common salt; 2-3 heads of garlic, pounded

Why it works: Ham and garlic work together. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 533 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Another Way to Cure Hams

Ingredients

2 hams (16 pounds each)
1¼ pounds brown sugar
3 ounces powdered saltpetre
1 pound coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
1 pound common salt
2-3 heads of garlic, pounded

Directions

Cure the hams

Mix brown sugar, powdered saltpetre, coarse sea salt, common salt, and pounded garlic together.
Rub the mixture into the hams thoroughly.
Let the hams sit for 3-4 weeks, turning and rubbing them daily.

Dry or smoke

After curing, dry the hams in the kitchen or smoke them for 2 weeks.

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.

Ham + garlictop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together533 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,084 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Sugar + garlictop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,208 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Powdered saltpetre: Helps cure the meat and gives it a pink colour during long curing.
Common salt: Draws out moisture and slows bacterial growth during the cure.
Coarse sea salt: Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the cure.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the cure.
Garlic: Adds aroma and flavour to the cured meat.

The step that matters

Turning and rubbing the hams daily during the cure. Salt and cure must penetrate evenly from all sides. Skipping turns lets the brine pool unevenly, so some areas stay under-cured and others become too salty.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, sugar):

Cinnamonfits better
Clovefits better
Nutmegfits better
Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sugar. 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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Another Way to Cure Hams