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To Pickle Cheeks of Bacon and Hams

Pickled bacon and ham cheeks cured with salt, sugar, saltpetre, pepper, vinegar, and smoked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Pickle Cheeks of Bacon and Hams

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the meat

  1. Mix the salt, sugar, saltpetre, and black pepper (if using) in a bowl.

  2. Rub the mixture thoroughly over the hams, ensuring all parts are covered.

  3. Place the hams in a deep pickling pan with the rind side down.

  4. Cover the hams with the salt mixture.

  5. Let the hams sit for three days to drain.

  6. Discard the brine.

Pickle and smoke

  1. Pour the vinegar over the hams.

  2. Turn the hams in the brine daily for one month.

  3. Drain the hams.

  4. Rub the hams with bran.

  5. Hang the hams in a chimney over a wood fire to smoke for one month.

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. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 seasons it, helping preserve it during curing.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt and adds mild sweetness to the cured flavour.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat's pink colour and inhibits harmful bacterial growth during curing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and further inhibits spoilage in the pickling brine.

The step that matters

Turn the hams in the brine daily for one month. Regular turning keeps every surface in contact with the brine, so the salt and acid cure the meat evenly. Uneven contact can leave spoiled or under-cured patches.

“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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