Why it works: Pork and sugar 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 ↓
Berkshire Receipt for Hams
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Rub the pork legs with saltpetre and let them sit for 24 hours.
Mix brown sugar and common salt together.
Rub the mixture onto the hams and let them sit for 3 weeks, turning and rubbing the pickle daily.
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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Pork + sugartop 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
- Pork legs
- The main meat, which the salt and cure slowly penetrate and firm up.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives cured ham its pink colour.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and flavour that balances the sharpness of the salt.
- Common salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and helps preserve it during curing.
The step that matters
Turning and rubbing the pickle daily. Salt and cure move into meat slowly, and uneven coverage leaves some areas under-cured and open to spoilage. Daily turning and rubbing keeps the cure in contact with every surface.
“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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