Kentish Mode of Cutting Up and Curing a Fig
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pork
Set aside the hams and cheeks for curing separately.
Salt the feet, ears, tail, and eye-parts of the head for immediate eating.
Reserve the blade-bones, ends of the loins, and ribs for sausage meat.
Cure
Rub the pork with a mixture of saltpetre, sugar, and bay salt.
Cover the bottom of a pickling tub with salt.
Pack the pork tightly, adding salt between layers.
Avoid adding water unless necessary to dissolve the salt into brine.
Boil a strong brine. Pour the cooled brine over the pork.
Place a board with a heavy stone on top of the meat to keep it submerged.
Rest and ripen
After 3 to 4 months, the pork will be ready to eat.
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
- Preserves the meat's pink colour and helps inhibit spoilage bacteria during long curing.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the meat, helping preserve it by limiting bacterial growth.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the saltiness and mellows the cure's flavour.
- Bay salt
- Adds coarse salt to the cure, drawing out moisture and seasoning the pork.
The step that matters
Keeping the pork submerged in brine. Meat exposed above the brine can spoil and grow mould during months of curing. The weighted board holds every surface under the liquid, keeping the cure even and protecting the pork.
“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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