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CUBIWa Mutton Ham

A preserved mutton ham cured with salt, saltpetre, and brown sugar, smoked or dried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and mutton work together. They rank in the top 34% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 726 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

CUBIWa Mutton Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cure

  1. Cut the hind-quarter of mutton into the shape of a ham.

  2. Pound the saltpetre with the coarse sea salt and brown sugar.

Cure

  1. Rub the ham well with this mixture, especially the hole of the shank.

  2. Let it sit for two weeks, rubbing it every two to three days.

  3. Press it with a weight for one day.

Smoke or dry

  1. Smoke it with sawdust for ten days or hang it to dry in the kitchen.

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. Sugar + muttontop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together726 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton hind-quarter
Forms the main meat that the cure penetrates and firms as it dries.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat, helping to preserve it during curing.
Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep its pink colour and inhibits spoilage bacteria during curing.
Brown sugar
Balances the salt with sweetness and adds a mild flavour to the cured meat.

The step that matters

Rubbing the ham every two to three days during the two-week cure. Salt must reach the thick centre and the shank hole evenly. Regular rubbing redistributes the cure and draws out moisture, so the meat cures uniformly rather than spoiling at the surface or staying raw inside.

“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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