How to Preserve Baked and Roasted Meats
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the meat
Select suitable portions of the carcass for salting and set aside those for immediate use.
Cut the remaining meat into joints of appropriate size and bake or roast to your desired doneness.
Pack in fat
Melt a large kettle of lard or drippings while the meat cooks.
Place each cooked joint into a jar or tub with a reversed plate at the bottom to prevent contact with the jar.
Pour the hot fat around and over the meat until fully covered.
Allow the fat to cool, which will exclude air and preserve the meat for several months.
Serve and clarify
When ready to use, remove the meat from the fat, heat quickly, and serve.
To clarify the fat, melt it in a kettle of water and let it cool to form a cake on the surface.
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
- Meat joints
- Provide the meat that is cooked and preserved under the fat.
- Lard or drippings
- Cover the cooked meat so air is excluded, helping it keep for months.
The step that matters
Pouring the hot fat until fully covered. Fat must completely cover the meat, because any exposed surface touches air and can spoil. Cooling the fat then sets a seal that excludes air.
“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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