Why it works: Ham and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,084 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Bacon
Ingredients
Directions
Cure the meat
Cut off the hams and head of the pig, removing the chine if large, but leave the spare ribs.
Salt the meat with common salt and a little saltpetre.
Let the meat sit for 10 days to drain brine.
Salt the meat again for 10 to 12 days.
Turn the meat daily after the second salting.
Clean and hang
Scrape the meat clean.
Rub a little salt on the meat.
Hang the meat up.
Scrape off any white froth.
Rub dry salt on the meat to prevent rusting.
Alternative method
For an alternative method, remove all inside fat from a side of pork and lay it on a board to drain blood.
Rub both sides of the pork with good salt.
Let the pork sit for a day.
Mix 1 pint of bay salt, ¼ pound of saltpetre, 2 pounds of coarse sugar, and ¼ peck of common salt.
Rub the pork with the mixture, laying it skin side down.
Baste the pork daily with the pickle for 2 weeks.
Hang the pork in wood smoke to finish.
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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Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,084 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Salt
- Draws out moisture and preserves the meat by inhibiting spoilage bacteria.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives the cured meat its pink colour.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the saltiness and adds sweetness to the cure.
- Bay salt
- Adds coarse salt to the cure, drawing out moisture from the meat.
The step that matters
Turning and basting the cure daily. Salt must reach every part of the meat evenly. Missing turns or basting lets the cure penetrate unevenly, so some areas may spoil or cure too salty.
“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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