General Rules for Pickling Beef, Pork, Mutton, Etc.
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brine
Boil water in a clean pot or kettle.
Add muscovado sugar, saltpetre, and coarse sea salt.
Skim off any scum that rises while boiling.
Once no more scum rises, remove the pot from heat and let the liquid cool.
Pickle the meat
Place the meat in a vessel and pour the cooled liquid over it until fully covered.
To preserve meat long-term, boil the pickle every two months, skimming off scum and adding 2 oz sugar and 4 lb coarse sea salt during boiling.
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 seasons it, helping preserve it during pickling.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat's colour and inhibits spoilage during long pickling.
- Muscovado sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the brine.
The step that matters
Skim the brine while it boils. Scum rising from the boiling liquid carries impurities that can spoil the pickle, so it must be removed until no more rises before cooling.
“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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