Pickle for Ham
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brine
Boil the water, salt, sugar, and saltpetre together and skim the pickling solution.
Allow the pickling solution to cool completely.
Cure the hams
Submerge the hams in the cooled pickle.
Let the hams remain in the pickle for six weeks.
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 while helping preserve it during curing.
- Sugar
- Balances the saltiness and adds mild sweetness to the cured flavour.
- Saltpetre
- Helps keep the meat pink and contributes to preservation during long curing.
The step that matters
Allow the pickling solution to cool completely. Adding hams to warm brine can partly cook the surface and encourage spoilage, so the brine must be fully cool before submerging the meat.
“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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