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 ↓
Kentish Mode of Cutting Up and Curing a Pig
Ingredients
Directions
Divide the pork
Set aside the hams and cheeks for curing separately.
Salt the feet, ears, tail, and eye-parts of the head for immediate eating.
Reserve the blade-bones, ends of the loins, and ribs for sausage meat.
Cure the pork
Rub the pork with a mixture of saltpetre, sugar, and bay salt.
Cover the bottom of a pickling tub with salt.
Pack the pork tightly in the tub, adding salt between layers.
Avoid adding water unless necessary.
If the brine does not cover the meat in two weeks, boil a brine of salt, saltpetre, sugar, and bay salt.
Cool the boiled brine.
Pour the cooled brine over the pork.
Place a board with a heavy stone on the meat to keep it submerged in the brine.
Rest and serve
After 3 to 4 months, the pork will be ready to serve as pickled pork.
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.
-
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
- Saltpetre
- Helps keep the cured meat pink and adds its characteristic cured flavour.
- Sugar
- Balances the saltiness and feeds the curing bacteria, giving a mellower flavour.
- Bay salt
- Draws moisture out of the pork and seasons it throughout during the cure.
The step that matters
Keeping the pork submerged in the brine. Any meat left above the brine can spoil or dry out and go grey, because only the brine protects it from air and microbes. A weighted board holds the pork under the liquid for the whole cure.
“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.
You might also like
Pork Cake107 recipes
Roast Pork82 recipes
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.