Poultry, Pickled
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brine
Boil the coarse sea salt, brown sugar, saltpetre, and water together for 1 hour, skimming as necessary.
Pour the brine into an earthenware vessel and let it cool completely.
Pickle the fowls
Once cold, add the fowls to the brine and let them soak for 2 to 3 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
- Fowls
- The meat that the brine seasons and cures as it soaks over several days.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it while helping preserve it.
- Saltpetre
- Acts as a curing agent that helps preserve the meat and firm its colour.
- Brown sugar
- Adds mild sweetness that balances the sharpness of the salt.
The step that matters
Let the brine cool completely before adding the fowls. Warm brine can partly cook the surface of the poultry and encourages bacterial growth, while cold brine keeps the meat safe and lets the cure penetrate 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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