Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Hams, to Cure
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Rub the hams well with coarse sea salt and let them drain for 1-2 days.
Rub in the sugar, salt, saltpetre, and vinegar in the specified proportions.
Turn the hams every other day.
Keep the hams in the pickle for 1 month.
Smoke
After 1 month, drain the hams and smoke them over a wood fire for 3 weeks to 1 month.
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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Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 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
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and preserves the meat by reducing the water available to spoilage microbes.
- Saltpetre
- Acts as a curing agent that helps preserve the meat and keeps a rosy colour.
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps inhibit spoilage in the cure.
- Sugar
- Balances the sharpness of the salt and vinegar and rounds out the flavour.
The step that matters
Turn the hams every other day. Salt and cure penetrate thick meat slowly and unevenly. Turning the hams exposes every surface to the pickle, so the cure reaches the centre and the meat cures consistently rather than spoiling on the outside.
“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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