To Cure Hams or Tongues
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cure
Mix the table salt, coarse sea salt, saltpetre, and black pepper.
Rub the mixture onto the hams or tongues.
Cure and baste
Let them sit in the mixture for two weeks, turning and rubbing daily.
After two weeks, baste the hams or tongues with treacle.
Turn and baste the hams or tongues daily for six weeks.
Smoke, store and keep
If using smoked hams, smoke them immediately after removing from the pickle.
Store the hams for at least six months before using.
In damp weather, wipe the hams.
In damp weather, place them in a dry area.
In hot weather, keep the hams in a cool place.
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
- Table salt
- Draws out moisture and helps preserve the meat during curing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives cured meat its pink colour.
- Treacle
- Adds sweetness and flavour, and its sugars help the surface brown.
- Black pepper
- Adds aroma and a sharp, spicy flavour to the cured surface.
The step that matters
Turning and rubbing daily during the two-week cure. Salt draws moisture out of the meat and dissolves into it slowly. Turning and rubbing daily spreads the cure evenly so no area is left under-salted and open to spoilage.
“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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