To Cure Hams
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cure
Pound the coarse sea salt, saltpetre, common salt, and coarse sugar together until well mixed.
Heat the mixture and rub it onto the hams thoroughly.
Cure the hams
Repeat this process every morning for a week.
After a week, let the hams sit in the brine for another week.
Once the brine is well incorporated into the meat, take the hams out to drain on dishes.
Dry the hams
Flour the hams and hang them up to dry.
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 helps preserve it during curing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and sets its characteristic pink colour during curing.
- Common salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and adds seasoning to the cure.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the saltiness and adds sweetness and flavour to the cured meat.
The step that matters
Rubbing the cure in thoroughly each morning. Salt and saltpetre only preserve the meat where they reach it. Thin or uneven coverage leaves gaps where spoilage can start, so the cure must be worked evenly into every part of each ham.
“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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