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 ↓
A Pickle for Ham, Beef, Tongue, Bacon, Etc
Ingredients
Directions
Cure the hams
Hang the hams for 1 day.
Rub 2 ounces of sal prunella, 2 ounces of saltpetre, and 1 pound of salt into each ham.
Place the hams in a deep pan.
Turn and rub the hams daily for 3 days.
Boil 3 gallons of water, 4 pounds of common salt, 4 pounds of coarse sea salt, and 7 pounds of moist sugar for 20 minutes.
Skim the pickle thoroughly.
Pour the hot pickle over the meat.
Continue to rub and turn the hams daily, changing their positions.
After 3 weeks, drain and dry the hams.
Finish and store
Smoke the hams if possible.
Boil and skim the pickle each time it is used.
Keep it tightly corked.
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.
-
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
- Hams
- The meat being cured; the brine and rubs penetrate it over several weeks to preserve and season it.
- Saltpetre
- Helps keep the cured meat's pink colour and inhibits spoilage-causing bacteria during long curing.
- Moist sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the cure.
- Common salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it while inhibiting bacterial growth.
- Coarse sea salt
- Provides salt for the pickle, seasoning and preserving the meat during curing.
- Sal prunella
- A fused salt containing saltpetre that acts as a curing agent, drawing moisture from the meat.
The step that matters
Skim the pickle thoroughly before pouring it over the meat. Boiling the pickle and skimming off the scum removes impurities that would otherwise spoil the brine during the long cure. Pouring it hot also helps the salt and sugar dissolve and penetrate evenly.
“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.
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.