To Salt a Bacon Ham
Ingredients
Directions
Cure the ham
Mix the salt, saltpetre, sugar, and spices together.
Open the ham at the shank and stuff it with the salt mixture.
Tie the ham tightly around the shank bone to keep out air.
Rub the ham with the mixture every other day.
Strew a little salt above and below the ham.
Cover with a plate and a cloth, ensuring the cloth does not touch the brine.
After 2-3 days, rub in more salt, continuing this for 3 weeks.
Keep the joint covered throughout the process.
Dry the ham
After 3 weeks, drain off the brine and hang the ham up to dry.
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
- Common salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and preserves it while curing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives the cured ham its characteristic colour.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the saltiness and softens the harshness of the cure.
The step that matters
Keeping the cloth off the brine. If the cloth touches the brine, it can wick liquid and spoil the cure unevenly. Keeping the joint covered and the cover clear of the brine helps the salt penetrate evenly and protects the meat from spoilage during the long cure.
“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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