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Another Way to Cure Hams

A method for curing hams using beer, salt, saltpetre, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beer and sugar 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 ↓

Another Way to Cure Hams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brine

  1. In a pot, combine the beer, common salt, saltpetre, and brown sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture until the sugar and salt dissolve.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then pour it over the hams.

Cure and smoke

  1. Rub the hams daily and baste them more frequently.

  2. Allow the hams to cure for three weeks, then smoke them.

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. Beer + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together699 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Beer + hamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. 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

Common salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and preserves it while curing.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat's pink colour and inhibits spoilage bacteria during curing.
Brown sugar
Balances the salt and adds sweetness and a mild molasses flavour to the cure.
Strong beer
Adds liquid to the brine and contributes malty flavour to the ham.

The step that matters

Let the brine cool before pouring it over the hams. Hot brine can partly cook the surface of the meat and uneven temperatures make curing less even, so cooling the mixture first helps the salt and sugar penetrate the meat gradually.

“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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