Name: For Curing Tongue or Beef
Ingredients: ½ ounce potash; ½ ounce saltpetre; 1 pound brown sugar; 1½ pounds rock salt

For Curing Tongue or Beef

Ingredients

½ ounce potash
½ ounce saltpetre
1 pound brown sugar
1½ pounds rock salt

Directions

Mix potash, saltpetre, brown sugar, and rock salt together.
Apply the mixture to the tongue or beef.
Cure for 25 to 30 pounds of meat.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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

Saltpetre: Helps preserve the meat and gives cured meat its pink colour.
Rock salt: Draws moisture out of the meat and helps preserve it.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the harshness of the salt.

“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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For Curing Tongue or Beef