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To Cure English Bacon

This recipe describes curing pork bacon with salt, saltpetre, sugar, and smoking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and sugar 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 ↓

To Cure English Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cure

  1. Cut the cooled pork into proper pieces.

  2. Mix the salt, saltpetre, and sugar together.

Cure the pork

  1. Rub the mixture thoroughly over each piece of pork.

  2. Place the pieces in a tight tub or suitable cask.

  3. Baste the meat with the brine that forms, two to three times a week, turning each piece each time.

Smoke

  1. Smoke the bacon using black birch chips or hickory for three weeks to a month.

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. Pork + sugartop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Pork
Provides the meat that becomes bacon, its texture set by curing and smoking.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat while helping preserve it.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the pink colour of the cured meat and guards against spoilage.
Sugar
Balances the saltiness and softens the harshness of the cure.

The step that matters

Basting the meat with the forming brine. Turning each piece and basting it with the brine that forms keeps the cure even across the surface. Uneven curing leaves some areas under-salted and vulnerable to spoilage.

“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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