Wiltshipe Bacon, the Manner of Curing
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Sprinkle the flitch of bacon with salt.
Let the blood drain off for 24 hours.
Mix the coarse sugar, coarse sea salt, saltpetre, and common salt.
Rub the mixture well onto the bacon.
Turn the bacon every day for a month.
Dry and smoke
Hang the bacon to dry.
Smoke the bacon for 10 days.
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 sugar
- Adds mild sweetness and balances the saltiness of the cure.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it through the cure.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives the cured bacon its pink colour.
- Common salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the bacon, helping preserve it.
The step that matters
Turning the bacon daily during the cure. Salt penetrates unevenly, so the cure must be rubbed in well and the bacon turned every day so that the salt and curing salts reach all areas and the meat cures evenly rather than spoiling in spots.
“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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