To Cttee English Bacon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pork
Dress and cool the hog, then cut it into proper pieces.
Mix the salt, saltpetre, and sugar together.
Rub the mixture thoroughly over each piece of meat.
Place the pieces in a tight tub or suitable cask.
Cure and smoke
Baste the meat with the brine that forms, two to three times a week, turning each piece each time.
Smoke the bacon using black birch chips or hickory for three weeks to a month.
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 moisture out of the meat and seasons it, forming the brine that cures the pork.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat's pink colour and inhibits spoilage bacteria during the long cure.
- Sugar
- Balances the salt's harshness and adds sweetness, and feeds surface browning during smoking.
The step that matters
Basting the meat with the forming brine. Turning each piece and basting it with the brine keeps the cure even across the meat. Uneven curing lets spoilage start in spots that get less salt and sugar.
“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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