To Cure English Bacon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Dress and cool the hog, then cut it into proper pieces.
Rub the salt, saltpetre, and sugar mixture thoroughly over each piece.
Place the pieces in a tight tub or suitable cask.
Cure
Baste the meat with the brine that forms from its juices two or three times a week, turning each piece each time.
Smoke
For smoking, use black birch chips or hickory wood for the best flavor.
Smoke the bacon for three weeks to a month.
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
- Salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the meat, helping preserve it during curing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives cured pork its characteristic pink colour.
- Sugar
- Balances the harshness of the salt and adds a mild sweetness to the cure.
- Hog
- Provides the pork that absorbs the cure and takes on smoke flavour over the curing period.
The step that matters
Turning and basting each piece. Cure must reach every part of the meat evenly. Turning the pieces and basting them with the forming brine keeps the salt and nitrate distributed, so no area spoils or cures unevenly.
“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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