Why it works: Sugar and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 37% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,579 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
To Pickle Pork
Ingredients
Directions
Salt the pork
Rub the pork sides well with common salt.
Lay a thin bed of salt in a tray, then place one side of pork in the tray and sprinkle salt to cover it.
Place the other side on top and sprinkle salt to cover the second side.
Let them lie for 2-3 days, rubbing the salt in.
Cure in brine
Cover with the remaining ingredients and rub well as the salt begins to dissolve.
Turn the sides frequently and ensure they are covered with brine.
It will be ready to use in 6-8 weeks.
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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Sugar + porktop 37% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,579 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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 pork and forms the brine that preserves it.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and keeps its color pink during curing.
- Coarse brown sugar
- Balances the saltiness and adds mild sweetness to the cured pork.
- Coarse sea salt
- Adds to the salt needed to cure the pork and build the brine.
The step that matters
Keeping the pork covered with brine. Meat that is not fully submerged in brine can spoil or cure unevenly. Turning the sides and keeping them covered as the salt dissolves ensures the cure penetrates the whole piece.
“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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