Pickle for Pork
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brine
Boil the water, sugar, coarse sea salt, and saltpetre together.
Skim off any impurities.
Allow the mixture to cool.
Brine the pork
Pour the cooled brine over the pork.
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 salt into it, seasoning and firming the pork.
- Sugar
- Balances the saltiness and adds a mild sweetness to the cured meat.
- Saltpetre
- Preserves the meat's pink colour and helps protect against bacterial growth during curing.
The step that matters
Allow the mixture to cool. Pouring hot brine over meat would partly cook its surface and warm it into the food-safety danger zone, so the brine should be fully cooled before use.
“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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