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Super-excellent Bacon

A method for curing pork into bacon using saltpetre, sugars, salts, treacle, and optional spices, then smoking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,121 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Super-excellent Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Rub the pork with saltpetre and brown sugar.

  2. Let the pork sit for several hours.

  3. Cover the meat with the mixture of coarse sea salt and common salt.

  4. Add treacle after four days.

  5. Turn the hams daily, basting with the pickle for one month.

Drain and wrap

  1. Hang the hams to drain overnight.

  2. Wrap the hams in brown paper.

Smoke and finish

  1. Smoke the hams for one month.

  2. Rub the meat with black pepper and juniper berries.

  3. Add salt.

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. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  3. Pork + sugartop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,579 recipes

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

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

Saltpetre
Helps the cure set a pink colour and preserves the meat against spoilage.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and preserves the meat while seasoning it.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and preserves the meat while seasoning it.
Brown sugar
Balances the saltiness and adds sweetness and depth of flavour.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, dark colour and a rich, molasses-like flavour.

The step that matters

Turn the hams daily while curing. Salt and cure only penetrate the meat by diffusion, so the pickle must cover the hams fully and be turned and basted daily. Uneven contact leaves 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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