To Cure Bacon, COBBETT’s Receipt
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Rub the insides of the bacon flitches with coarse sea salt.
Place the flitches one on top of the other, flesh sides up, in a salting trough with a drainage gutter.
Cure
Change the salt every 4 to 5 days to ensure it does not dissolve in brine.
Rotate the flitches, placing the one that was on top at the bottom.
Cure the bacon for about 6 weeks in a cool, well-ventilated 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
- Young bacon flitches
- Provide the pork belly meat that is salt-cured into bacon.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and preserves the meat while it cures.
The step that matters
Changing the salt every 4 to 5 days. Salt dissolves into the liquid drawn from the meat, forming brine that can weaken the cure. Replacing the salt keeps it dry and concentrated so it keeps drawing moisture and preserving the meat evenly.
“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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