Name: To Corn Beef, Pork or Hams
Ingredients: 100 pounds of meat; 6 gallons of water; 9 pounds of coarse sea salt; 3 pounds of brown sugar; 1 quart of molasses; 1 ounce of potash; 6 ounces of saltpetre

Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Corn Beef, Pork or Hams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brine

Boil the water with salt, brown sugar, molasses, potash, and saltpetre.
Let the mixture cool completely.

Cure the meat

Pack the meat into a container.
Pour the cooled brine over the meat.

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.

Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Meat + sugartop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,866 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Meat + molassestop 37% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together441 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Saltpetre: Acts as a curing agent that helps give cured meat its characteristic pink color and preserving effect.
Coarse sea salt: Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it while helping preserve it during curing.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the brine.
Molasses: Adds depth of flavor and a dark color to the cured meat.
Potash: Raises the alkalinity of the brine, which helps the curing agents work and firms the meat's texture.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool completely. Hot brine can partly cook the surface of the meat and uneven temperatures can cause uneven curing. Cooling fully before pouring it over the meat keeps the meat raw and the cure even.

“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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To Corn Beef, Pork or Hams