Brine for Ham
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brine
Boil the salt, water, sugar, and saltpetre together.
Allow the mixture to cool.
Cure the ham
Pour the brine over the ham.
Set the ham in a cool place.
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
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and carries seasoning into it, firming the texture.
- Sugar
- Balances the salt's sharpness and adds sweetness and mild browning character to the cured ham.
- Saltpetre
- Helps keep the cured meat's pink colour and inhibits spoilage-causing bacteria during curing.
The step that matters
Let the brine cool before pouring it over the ham. Brine that is still hot can partly cook the surface of the meat and uneven temperatures make curing less predictable. Cooling it first keeps the ham raw and cures it evenly.
“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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