Name: Soper-excellent Bacon
Ingredients: 14 pounds well-fed pork; 1 ounce saltpetre (fine powder); 3 ounces very brown sugar; 8 ounces coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'), dried and pounded; 4 ounces common salt; 1 pound treacle; 1 ounce ground black pepper (optional); 3 ounces bruised juniper berries (optional)

Why it works: Pork and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,121 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Soper-excellent Bacon

Ingredients

14 pounds well-fed pork
1 ounce saltpetre (fine powder)
3 ounces very brown sugar
8 ounces coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'), dried and pounded
4 ounces common salt
1 pound treacle
1 ounce ground black pepper (optional)
3 ounces bruised juniper berries (optional)

Directions

Cure

Rub the pork with saltpetre and brown sugar, and let it sit for several hours.
Cover the meat with the mixture of coarse sea salt and common salt.
For enhanced flavor, rub the meat with ground black pepper and bruised juniper berries before adding salt.
After four days, add treacle and turn the hams daily, basting with the pickle for one month.

Dry and smoke

Hang the hams to drain overnight, then wrap them in brown paper.
Send the wrapped hams to be smoked for one month.

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.

Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,401 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pork + sugartop 37% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,579 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Well-fed pork: Forms the main body of the cut that is cured and smoked.
Saltpetre: Helps the meat keep its pink colour during curing.
Coarse sea salt: Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during curing.
Common salt: Adds salt to the cure and helps draw moisture out of the meat.
Treacle: Adds sweetness and a dark colour to the pickle that the hams are basted with.
Very brown sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the cure.

The step that matters

Basting with the pickle for one month. Regular turning and basting keep the cure evenly distributed over the meat, so salt and sugar penetrate consistently and the hams cure without drying 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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Soper-excellent Bacon