Why it works: Sugar and lime are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,332 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
For Curing Hams
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the leg
Choose a well-fed leg of hog that is at least 1 year old.
Sprinkle the leg with a little coarse sea salt.
Let the leg drain for a day.
Cure
Rub the leg thoroughly with ½ cup coarse sea salt, ½ cup coarse sugar, ¼ cup common salt, and 4 oz. saltpetre.
Lay the leg rind down.
Cover the fleshy parts with the salt mixture.
Baste frequently.
Turn every second day.
Keep the leg in the salt for 4 weeks.
Dry and age
Drain the leg and cover it with bran.
Hang the leg in a cool place to dry.
Wrap the leg in a coarse linen wrapper rubbed with lime.
Do not use the ham until it is at least 3 months old.
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 + limetop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,332 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Hog leg
- Provides the meat that is cured, dried and aged into ham.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during the cure.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the saltiness and adds sweetness to the cure.
- Common salt
- Adds to the salt concentration that preserves the meat during curing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives the cured ham its characteristic colour.
The step that matters
Turning and basting the leg during the cure. Salt penetrates unevenly and the cure must reach every fleshy part. Frequent basting and turning every second day keep the salt mixture in contact with all surfaces, so the meat cures evenly and less spoilage risk remains.
“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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