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Preserve

To Cure Hams in a Cheap Manner

A method for curing hams using salt, saltpetre, and smoking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and corn work together. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 150 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

To Cure Hams in a Cheap Manner

Ingredients

Directions

Dry salt

  1. Lay the hams in tubs, flesh side up.

  2. Sprinkle salt on the fleshy part.

  3. Let them drain for 24 hours.

  4. Rub off the salt and place them in a large tub.

Brine and cure

  1. Prepare a brine by dissolving 1 pound of salt in 1 gallon of water. Add 3.5 ounces of saltpetre for every 6 pounds of ham to the brine.

  2. Boil the brine, skimming off the scum.

  3. Pour the boiling brine over the hams.

  4. Let the hams sit in the brine for 6 weeks.

  5. Take them out and drain.

Smoke and finish

  1. Create smoke using corn-cobs or sound hard wood with damp sawdust to prevent a blaze.

  2. Suspend the hams above the smoke source for about 3 weeks until they are a good brown color.

  3. Once smoked, dry the hams.

  4. Sew cotton cloth over them.

  5. Whitewash the outside.

  6. Alternatively, cover the hams with paper and bury them in ashes until needed.

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. Ham + corntop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together150 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Hams
The main meat that is cured, smoked and preserved.
Salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat, helping to preserve it during curing.
Saltpetre
Helps keep the cured meat pink and adds to its preservation during the long cure.
Corn-cobs or sound hard wood
Produces the smoke that gives the hams flavour and a brown colour.

The step that matters

Rub off the salt and place them in a large tub. Salt drawn into the meat during the dry salting must be removed before brining, or the hams become overly salty. Thorough rinsing or wiping ensures the brine can then cure the meat evenly.

“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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