Composition of Bacon
Ingredients
Directions
Make the cure
Dissolve salt in hot water to create brine.
Mix brown sugar and saltpetre, then rub into the pork.
Cure the pork
Place the pork in the brine for 2 days.
Remove the pork, rub with coarse sea salt, and return to the brine.
Dry and smoke
After drying and smoking, the bacon will be ready in 6 to 8 weeks.
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
What each ingredient does
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the harshness of the salt in the cure.
- Saltpetre (nitre)
- Helps the meat keep its pink colour and preserves it during curing.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the pork and seasons it while helping it cure.
The step that matters
Rubbing the cure into the pork. The sugar and saltpetre must be spread evenly over the meat. Uneven coverage leaves some areas under-cured, so the bacon can cure unevenly, spoil in spots, or lose its colour.
“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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