How to Cure Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brine
Prepare a brine with a large quantity of coarse sea salt and a very small amount of saltpetre if desired.
Submerge the meat in the brine and let it cure for at least three weeks for pickled meat or five days for corned beef.
Cook the tongues
For corned tongues, add a large quantity of salt and a small lump of saltpetre to the boiling water.
Boil the tongues in plenty of water and avoid reducing the liquid too much.
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 meat and seasons it during curing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the meat keep its pink colour during curing.
The step that matters
Boil the tongues in plenty of water. Keeping the liquid volume high stops the salt and saltpetre concentration from rising too far as water evaporates, so the meat cooks evenly and does not turn overly salty.
“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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