Name: Pickle for Mutton Hams, and Tongues
Ingredients: 1 cup coarse sugar; 1 cup common salt; 1 cup coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 1 ounce saltpetre; 1 ounce sal prunel; ½ ounce black pepper; ½ ounce allspice; ½ ounce juniper berries; ½ ounce coriander seeds

Why it works: Allspice and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 393 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pickle for Mutton Hams, and Tongues

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cure

Mix the coarse sugar, common salt, and coarse sea salt in equal parts.
For each pound of this mixture, add 1 ounce of saltpetre and 1 ounce of sal prunel.
Add ½ ounce each of bruised or ground black pepper, allspice, juniper berries, and coriander seeds.

Apply to the hams

Dry the mixture before the fire and apply it hot to the mutton hams.

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.

Allspice + coriandertop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together393 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + coriandertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,949 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Sugar + allspicetop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,938 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar + coriandertop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,749 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Coarse sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the harshness of the salt in the cure.
Common salt: Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it through, helping preserve it.
Coarse sea salt: Provides the main salting action and seasoning in the cure.
Saltpetre: Helps preserve the meat and gives it a characteristic pink-red color.
Black pepper: Adds pungent aroma and flavor to the cured meat.

The step that matters

Drying the mixture before the fire. If the mixture is not dry before it is applied hot, moisture and clumping can keep it from adhering evenly and penetrating the meat. Even coating and thorough salt penetration are what make the cure preserve the hams consistently.

Swap the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, pepper, allspice):

Cinnamonfits better
Clovefits better
Nutmegfits better
Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper, allspice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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Pickle for Mutton Hams, and Tongues