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
Prepare 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
Rub the pork with a mixture of saltpetre, sugar, and bay salt.
Cover the bottom of a pickling tub with salt and pack the pork tightly, 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 it, and pour it over the pork.
Place a board with a heavy stone on top of the meat to keep it submerged in the brine.
Serve
After 3 to 4 months, the pickled pork will be ready to serve.
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.
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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.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and preserves it by slowing bacterial growth.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the saltiness and adds mild sweetness to the cure.
- Bay salt
- Adds salt for curing and firms the surface of the meat as it dries.
The step that matters
Keeping the pork submerged in brine. Meat above the brine line can spoil or mould, because exposure to air allows microbes to grow. A weighted board holds the pork under the brine so the salt can cure it evenly throughout.
“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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