To Cure Hams the Yorkshire Method
Ingredients
Directions
Cure the hams
Beat the hams well.
Mix together salt, saltpetre, sal-prunella, and coarse salt.
Rub the mixture well into the hams.
Place the hams in a pickling tub and cover with remaining mixture.
Let them sit for three days.
Brine and finish
Cover the hams with enough water to submerge them, adding salt until it is saturated.
Boil and strain the brine.
The next morning, submerge the hams in the brine and press down to keep them covered.
After two weeks, rub the hams with bran and dry them.
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 gives the ham its characteristic pink colour.
- Coarse salt
- Draws out moisture and preserves the meat while seasoning it through the cure.
- Sal-prunella
- Acts as a curing agent that adds to the preserving action of the salt and saltpetre.
The step that matters
Rubbing the mixture well into the hams. Cure only penetrates the meat where it touches the surface, so thorough rubbing ensures even salting and preservation throughout the ham.
“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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