Pickle for Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brine
Combine the salt, brown sugar, saltpetre, and water in a large saucepan.
Bring the mixture to a boil and let it boil for 15 minutes, skimming regularly.
Strain the mixture into a tub or large basin.
Cure the meat
Once the pickle is completely cool, submerge the meat in it, ensuring it is well covered for 9 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
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws water out of the meat and seasons it, helping preserve it during curing.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the brine.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the meat keep its pink colour during curing.
The step that matters
Cooling the brine before adding the meat. Adding meat to hot brine can partly cook its surface and raise its temperature into a range where spoilage bacteria grow faster. Letting the brine cool completely first keeps the meat safer and cures it evenly.
“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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