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Preserve

To Sugar-cure Pork

This recipe describes curing pork with a sugar and salt mixture, followed by smoking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Sugar-cure Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the pork

  1. Mix saltpetre, brown sugar, fine salt, and black pepper.

  2. Rub the mixture onto the warm pork.

  3. Let the pork sit for three days.

Salt and finish

  1. After three days, rub the pork with 2 quarts of fine salt.

  2. Let it sit for two weeks or until the salt is absorbed.

  3. Finally, smoke the pork.

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. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. 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

Saltpetre
Preserves the meat and gives cured pork its characteristic pink color.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the cure.
Fine salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the pork as it cures.

The step that matters

Rubbing the cure evenly into the pork. Salt and curing agents only protect and season the meat where they touch it. Uneven coverage leaves spots that cure poorly or spoil, so every surface needs a thorough, even rub.

“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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