Name: To Cure Hams, &C
Ingredients: 1 ham; coarse sea salt; black pepper; cold water; dry sawdust, malt-dust, or bran; 1 pint vinegar; 2 ounces coarse sea salt

Why it works: Pepper and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Cure Hams, &C

Ingredients

Directions

Rub the ham with coarse sea salt and let it sit for 2 days.
Turn the ham, rub it with brine, and baste it several times daily for a month (3 weeks for a small ham).
After curing, drain the ham, wash off the salt with cold water, and dry it with a cloth.
Rub black pepper inside the ham and at the knuckle.
Hang the ham to dry in a chimney or send it to a baker until hard.
Store the ham in a chest with dry sawdust, malt-dust, or bran until the day before serving.
Soak the ham in cold water before cooking.

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.

Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Malt + vinegartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together365 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ham + vinegartop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together737 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).
Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,058 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + malttop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together189 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).