Name: To Cure Hams
Ingredients: 1.5 ounces saltpetre; 1.5 ounces coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 0.5 ounces sal-prunel; 1 pound coarse sugar; bran for covering; common salt (to taste)

To Cure Hams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hams

Hang the hams for a day or two.
Sprinkle with a little salt and drain for another day.

Cure

Mix saltpetre, bay salt, sal-prunel, and sugar well.
Rub the mixture into each ham daily for four days, turning it each time.
For small hams, turn daily for three weeks; for large hams, turn for four weeks.
Before drying, drain and cover with bran.

Smoke

Smoke the ham for ten days.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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: Preserves the meat and gives the cured ham its characteristic colour.
Coarse sugar: Balances the saltiness and adds sweetness to the cure.
Coarse sea salt: Draws moisture out of the meat and helps preserve it during curing.

“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.