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Mutton Hams

A preserved mutton ham cured with saltpetre, sugar, and salt, smoked and dried for 14 days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and sugar work together. They rank in the top 34% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 726 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mutton Hams

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Cut the hind-quarter of mutton like a ham.

  2. Mix saltpetre, coarse sugar, and common salt.

  3. Rub the mixture onto the ham.

  4. Place the ham skin-side down in a hollow tray.

  5. Baste the ham every day for 14 days.

Smoke and finish

  1. Roll the ham in sawdust and hang it in wood smoke for 14 days.

  2. Boil the ham and then hang it in a dry place.

  3. Cut the ham into rashers.

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. Mutton + sugartop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together726 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mutton hind-quarter
Forms the main body of the ham that is cured, smoked and sliced.
Saltpetre
Helps cure the meat and gives it its characteristic pink colour during curing.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the cure.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt and adds mild sweetness to the cured meat.

The step that matters

Basting the ham every day for 14 days. The cure must be distributed evenly as salt and sugar penetrate the meat. Skipping days can leave uncured spots that may spoil or taste unevenly salted.

“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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