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To Cure Hams

A method for curing hams using salt, saltpetre, bay salt, pepper, sugar, treacle, and optional garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Cure Hams

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Rub the salt into the meat, ensuring it is well covered at the shank bone.

  2. Let the ham sit in the salt for a week, turning and rubbing it daily, rind-side down.

  3. After a week, add the remaining ingredients to the pickle, pounding the saltpetre and bay salt.

  4. Let the ham stay in the pickle for another two weeks.

Dry and store

  1. Drain the ham and hang it to dry near the kitchen range.

  2. After about a month, place it in a secure paper bag to keep flies away.

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.

  1. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Meat + garlictop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,530 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Meat
Forms the body of the ham, which the cure penetrates and firms.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and preserves the meat during curing.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat and gives the cured ham its characteristic colour.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt with sweetness and feeds the curing process.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark, rich colour to the cure.

The step that matters

Pounding the saltpetre and bay salt into the pickle. Large crystals dissolve slowly and unevenly, so pounding them fine helps the cure distribute through the pickle and reach the meat more consistently.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, sugar, garlic):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, sugar, garlic. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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