Excellent Bacon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Divide the hog and remove the chine.
Leave the spare ribs on for better preservation.
Cure
Salt the bacon for six days.
Drain the bacon.
Mix the salt, saltpetre, and sugar together, then rub the mixture well into the bacon.
Turn the bacon daily for a month.
Drain the bacon.
Smoke and dry
Smoke the bacon for a few days.
Dry the bacon by hanging it in the kitchen away from the fire.
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
- Hog
- The meat itself, which is cured, smoked and dried to become bacon.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the meat, helping preserve it against spoilage.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives cured bacon its characteristic pink colour.
- Coarse sugar
- Softens the harshness of the salt and balances the flavour of the cure.
The step that matters
Turn the bacon daily for a month. Salt and cure must penetrate evenly through the meat. Turning it daily keeps every surface in contact with the cure, so no spot is left under-salted and prone to spoilage.
“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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