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Wiltshire Bacon

Pork flitches cured by rubbing with a mixture of salt, sugar and saltpetre, then dried and smoked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Wiltshire Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle each flitch of bacon with salt.

  2. Let the blood drain off for 24 hours.

Cure

  1. Mix the sugar, coarse sea salt, saltpetre, and coarse salt together.

  2. Rub the mixture well on the bacon, turning and wetting it daily for a month.

Dry and smoke

  1. Hang the bacon to dry.

  2. Smoke the bacon for 10 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

Coarse salt
Draws out moisture and preserves the meat during curing.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during curing.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the cured meat and gives it a characteristic pink colour.
Sugar
Balances the saltiness and adds a mild sweetness to the cure.

The step that matters

Rubbing and turning the cure daily. Salt penetrates meat slowly and unevenly. Missing days or skipping areas leaves parts under-cured, which lets spoilage bacteria grow, so the mixture must be rubbed in well and turned throughout the month.

“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.