Why it works: Ham and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,058 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Hams
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Rub the ham with salt and drain from brine.
Mix saltpetre and coarse sugar, then rub this mixture all over the meat.
Let the meat sit for several hours.
Cover the ham with the mixture of bay salt and common salt.
After four days, add treacle and baste the ham daily with the pickle for one month.
Dry and smoke
Hang the ham to drain overnight, then wrap in brown paper.
Smoke the ham for one 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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Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,058 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,401 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Ham + sugartop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,084 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Saltpetre
- Preserves the meat and gives the cured ham its characteristic pink colour.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during the long cure.
- Common salt
- Adds salting power to the cure and seasons the ham through.
- Treacle
- Adds sweetness and flavour to the pickle and promotes browning on the surface.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the salt and adds sweetness to the cure.
The step that matters
Basting the ham daily with the pickle. Regular basting keeps the surface evenly in contact with the cure, so the salt and curing agents penetrate uniformly and no part of the ham spoils or cures unevenly.
“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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