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To Cure Bacon in the Wiltshire Way

A method for curing a flitch of pork into bacon using sugar, bay-salt, saltpetre and common salt, then smoking it.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 7 ingredients
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To Cure Bacon in the Wiltshire Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle each flitch with salt and let the blood drain off for 24 hours.

  2. Pound and mix the sugar, bay-salt, saltpetre and common salt well together.

Cure

  1. Rub the mixture well into the meat.

  2. Turn the meat every day for a month.

Dry and smoke

  1. Hang it to dry.

  2. Smoke it for 10 days.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Flitch
The main meat; salt penetrates it and draws out moisture during curing.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and preserves the meat by slowing bacterial growth.
Sugar (in the method)
Balances the sharpness of the salt and adds mild sweetness to the cure.
Bay-salt
Adds coarse salt that cures the meat and seasons it through.
Saltpetre (in the method)
Helps preserve the meat and gives the cured flesh its characteristic colour.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture well into the meat. Salt and cure must reach every part of the meat evenly. Missed or thin spots can spoil or cure unevenly, so the rub should be worked in thoroughly and turned daily as the cure penetrates.

“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.