Why it works: Sugar and malt work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 325 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
To Cure Hams
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cure
Use fresh hams.
Pound the saltpetre and sal prunel, then rub this mixture into the hams.
Let the hams sit in an earthen pan or leaden trough for 12 hours.
Rub the hams with the common salt and coarse sugar.
Cure and dry
Turn and rub the hams every other day for one month.
After a month, remove the hams from the pan, drain, and wipe them well.
Dust the hams with malt dust or bran and hang them in a cool place in your kitchen.
Check the hams regularly in hot weather to prevent flies.
If desired, hang the hams in a chimney for smoking.
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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Sugar + malttop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together325 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
- Saltpetre
- Helps the cure keep its pink colour and firm texture in the meat.
- Common salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the meat, helping preserve it.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the saltiness and adds mild sweetness to the cured meat.
The step that matters
Turning and rubbing the hams every other day for one month. Salt must reach evenly into the meat over time. Skipping turns lets the cure pool unevenly, leaving some areas too salty or under-cured and open to spoilage.
“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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