Why it works: Veal and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,264 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Veal Hams
Ingredients
Directions
Cure the ham
Mix the coarse sea salt, saltpetre, common salt, and juniper berries together.
Rub the mixture well into the ham.
Lay the ham in a tray, skin side down, and baste it daily for 14 days.
Smoke and cook
Hang the ham in wood smoke for an additional 14 days.
Boil or parboil the ham, then roast it.
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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Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,264 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Veal leg
- Forms the ham itself; the cured meat that the salts and smoke act on.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during the cure.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the cured meat and gives it a pink colour.
- Common salt
- Preserves the meat by drawing out moisture and seasoning it.
- Juniper berries
- Adds a resinous, aromatic flavour to the cured meat.
The step that matters
Basting the ham daily during the 14-day cure. Turning and basting redistributes the salt brine evenly across the meat, so the cure penetrates uniformly and no area is left under-salted or at risk of spoiling.
“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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