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Preserve

Fickle for Curing Bacon

A brine of water, salt, sugar, molasses and saltpetre used to cure bacon, hams and shoulders.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fickle for Curing Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brine

  1. Mix the water, coarse sea salt, sugar, molasses, and saltpetre in a large container.

Pack and cure

  1. Rub the thick part of the ham, shoulder, or middling with a little salt.

  2. Pack the meat in a clean barrel, starting with hams, then shoulders, and middlings.

  3. Pour the brine over the meat.

  4. If the brine does not cover the meat, make more brine.

  5. Let the meat cure in the brine for 4 to 7 weeks, depending on size.

Finish

  1. After curing, drain the meat.

  2. Sprinkle pepper around the bone.

  3. Smoke with hickory wood or air dry.

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 + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Molasses + peppertop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and preserves it while the cure penetrates.
Sugar
Balances the saltiness and feeds mild fermentation and browning during smoking.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, color, and a deeper flavor to the cured meat.
Saltpetre
Supplies nitrate that helps preserve the meat's pink color and inhibits spoilage bacteria.

The step that matters

Keeping the meat fully submerged in brine. Any part of the meat left above the brine can spoil or cure unevenly, because salt and curing agents only penetrate the meat where it is in contact with the liquid. Adding more brine when needed keeps the whole cure consistent.

“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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