French Bacon for Larding
Ingredients
Directions
Cure the bacon
Cut the bacon from the pig, leaving as little lean as possible.
Rub the bacon thoroughly with dried, powdered, and sifted salt.
Layer the bacon in a shallow wooden trough, pressing them close together.
Add more salt around the bacon and place a board with a heavy weight on top.
Let it cure for six weeks in a cool, dry cellar.
Dry the bacon
After six weeks, hang the bacon in a dry, airy place.
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
- Pork
- Forms the bacon itself; its fat is what gives larding strips their richness and moisture.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and preserves the meat during the long cure.
The step that matters
Rubbing the bacon thoroughly with salt. Salt must reach every surface evenly, since uneven coverage lets spoilage start in spots and the cure fails to preserve the meat throughout.
“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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