Wiltshire Bacon
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Sprinkle each flitch of bacon with salt and let the blood drain for 24 hours.
Mix the sugar, fine salt, saltpetre, and coarse salt.
Rub the mixture well on the bacon, turning and wetting it daily for a month.
Dry and smoke
Hang the bacon to dry and smoke it for 10 days.
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
- Helps cure the meat and keeps its pink colour during curing and smoking.
- Coarse salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and preserves it during the long cure.
- Fine salt
- Penetrates the meat quickly and helps preserve it during curing.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the saltiness and adds mild sweetness to the finished bacon.
The step that matters
Daily rubbing and turning for a month. Salt cures evenly only when the mixture is spread well and the meat is turned regularly, so uneven coverage can leave spoilage-prone spots under-cured.
“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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