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To Pickle Cheeks of Bacon and Hams

A preserved dish of bacon and ham cheeks pickled in salt, sugar, vinegar, and optional spices.

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, and saltpetre in a bowl.

  2. Rub the mixture thoroughly over the meat.

  3. Place the meat in a deep dish with the rind side down and cover it with the mixture.

  4. Let it sit for 3 days to drain, then discard the brine.

Pickle and smoke

  1. After 3 days, pour a bottle of vinegar over the meat and turn it in the brine daily for a month.

  2. After a month, drain the meat, rub it with bran, and hang it in a chimney over a wood fire to smoke for 1 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 preserves it during curing.
Coarse sugar
Balances the saltiness and adds sweetness to the cure.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps pickle and preserve the meat during the long soak.

The step that matters

Turning the meat in the brine daily. Turning keeps every surface in contact with the curing liquid, so the salt and acid penetrate evenly. Skipping turns can leave parts under-cured and more prone to spoilage over the month-long soak.

“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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