Why it works: Sugar and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 37% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,579 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Kentish Mode of Cutting Up and Curing a Pig
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pork
Set aside the hams and cheeks for separate curing.
Salt the feet, ears, tail, and eye-parts of the head for immediate eating.
Reserve the blade-bones, ends of the loins, and ribs for sausage meat.
Cure in the tub
Rub the pork with a mixture of saltpetre, sugar, and bay-salt.
Cover the bottom of a pickling tub with salt and pack the pork tightly, layering with remaining salt.
Avoid adding water unless necessary.
If the brine does not cover the meat in two weeks, boil a strong brine and pour it over the pork.
Place a board with a heavy stone on top to keep the meat submerged.
Serve
After 3 to 4 months, the pork will be ready to serve as pickled pork.
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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Sugar + porktop 37% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,579 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and preserves it through curing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the meat keep its pink colour during curing.
- Coarse sugar
- Adds a touch of sweetness and balances the saltiness of the cure.
The step that matters
Keeping the pork submerged in brine. Meat left above the brine can spoil or dry out and discolour. Weighting the board with a heavy stone keeps the pork under the liquid, and topping up with strong boiled brine if the level drops helps the cure protect it throughout.
“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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