Name: Hams
Ingredients: 1 ounce black pepper; 1 ounce allspice; ½ pound coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); ½ pound sugar; 1 quart beer; 1½ pounds brown sugar; 2½ pounds coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); ½ pound coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')

Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Hams

Ingredients

1 ounce black pepper
1 ounce allspice
½ pound coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
½ pound sugar
1 quart beer
1½ pounds brown sugar
2½ pounds coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
½ pound coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')

Directions

If the weather allows, hang the hams for a few days.
Mix black pepper, allspice, saltpetre, coarse sea salt, and sugar with beer; boil and pour hot over the hams.
Turn the hams in the pickle for three weeks.
Let the hams drain, brush with pyroligneous acid, and sprinkle with sharps, bran, or pollard.
Rub brown sugar, coarse sea salt, and saltpetre dry on the hams, bacon, and cheeks.
Turn every day for the first ten days, then every other day.
Use the acid and bran as before.

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 + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + beertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together940 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Allspice + beertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together108 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Sugar + beertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together699 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Allspice + sugartop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,938 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).