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 ↓
To Cure Hams
Ingredients
Directions
Cure the ham
Sprinkle the ham with common salt and let it sit for 24 hours.
Rub the ham with ground black pepper and pounded saltpetre.
Let it sit for another 24 hours.
Rub in coarse sea salt.
Pour treacle over the ham and let it sit for 3 weeks to 1 month, turning and rubbing it daily.
Soak and smoke
Soak the ham in cold water for 24 hours.
Hang the ham in a chimney where wood or turf is burned for 2 weeks.
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).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Ham
- Is the meat being cured, so its texture and flavour change over the long process.
- Common salt
- Draws out moisture and helps preserve the meat by slowing bacterial growth.
- Pounded saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives it the characteristic cured colour.
- Coarse sea salt
- Adds further salt that draws out moisture and firms the meat during curing.
- Treacle
- Adds sweetness and flavour, and its sugars help balance the salt in the cure.
The step that matters
Soaking in cold water after the salt cure. Soaking draws out surplus salt left on the surface and inside the ham. Skipping or shortening it can leave the cure too salty to eat comfortably.
“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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