New-england Salt Pork
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the pork sides and belly into desired sizes.
Pack the pieces in kegs or barrels with plenty of salt.
Cure
Cover the pork with cold water and place a heavy stone on top to keep it submerged.
If the salt dissolves in 2-3 days, add more salt until there's always a little more salt than the water can dissolve.
After about 6 weeks, the pork will be sufficiently salted to use.
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 pork and preserves it, as the brine it forms keeps spoilage organisms in check.
- Pork sides and belly
- Fatty cuts that take up salt slowly and become firm and well preserved through the cure.
- Cold water
- Forms a brine with the salt so the pork cures evenly while kept fully submerged.
The step that matters
Keeping extra salt in the brine. Salt must stay saturated so the brine remains strong enough to preserve the pork. If the salt dissolves in the first days, the brine weakens and the meat can spoil, so more salt is added to keep some undissolved.
“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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