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Salad

To Make Brine Por Salting Meat

A salt-based brine used to cure and preserve meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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To Make Brine Por Salting Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brine

  1. Mix salt, saltpetre, soft sugar, and water together well.

Cure the meat

  1. Submerge the meat in the brine, ensuring it is fully covered.

  2. Keep the meat in the brine for 4 to 6 days, depending on desired saltiness.

  3. For pickling hams and tongues, add 12 pounded cochineal grains to the brine for color.

  4. Check the brine regularly.

  5. If it smells sour or offensive, boil it and skim well.

  6. Allow the brine to cool before reusing.

  7. It can only be boiled once or twice before needing to be replaced.

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

Salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it, preserving the meat during curing.
Saltpetre
Helps keep the meat's colour pink and contributes to the cured flavour.
Soft sugar
Balances the saltiness and adds a mild sweetness to the cured meat.

The step that matters

Checking and boiling the brine. A brine that smells sour or offensive is spoiling, and boiling and skimming it removes impurities. Brine can only be boiled a limited number of times before it should be replaced, so cooks should not keep reusing it indefinitely.

“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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