Why it works: Meat and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 34% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,866 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
To Cure Hams and Drying Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pickle
Dissolve the salt, brown sugar, saltpetre, and saleratus in enough water to cover the meat.
Ensure the hams are not frozen when applying the pickle; thaw frozen meat in cold water.
Cure the meat
Pack the meat in a cask without any additional salt and pour the pickle over it.
Let it stand for about six weeks.
Smoke and dry
After six weeks, remove the meat and smoke it.
Hang the hams in the smoke-house with the legs downward.
After smoking, place each ham in a loose muslin sack to keep off flies and hang in a cool, dry place.
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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Meat + sugartop 34% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,866 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and helps preserve it during curing.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the harshness of the salt in the cure.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives cured meat its characteristic reddish colour.
- Saleratus
- Alkaline salt that helps the cure work and keeps the meat's colour stable.
The step that matters
Thawing frozen meat before applying the pickle. Frozen meat does not take up the pickle evenly, so the cure can penetrate unevenly. Thawing in cold water first lets the brine reach the whole piece.
“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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