For Curing Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brine
Boil water, salt, sugar, saltpeter, and potash together until ready to skim.
Pour the mixture out to cool.
Cure the meat
When cold, pour over the beef and let it remain for four to five weeks.
Do not put the meat down for two days after killing.
Sprinkle with powdered saltpeter to remove surface blood.
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 against spoilage.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and softens the sharpness of the salt in the cure.
- Saltpeter
- Helps preserve the meat and gives cured meat its characteristic reddish colour.
The step that matters
Let the brine cool before pouring it over the beef. Pouring hot brine over raw meat can partly cook and toughen the surface, which slows the brine from penetrating evenly into 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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