Cobbett’s Receipt for Curing Bacon
Ingredients
Directions
Salt the pork
Rub the inside of the flitches with coarse sea salt.
Place the flitches flesh sides up in a salting trough with a gutter to drain brine.
Cure
Change the salt every 4 to 5 days to ensure it does not become sopping.
Rotate the flitches, placing the one that was on the bottom to the top.
Cure for about six weeks, adjusting time based on thickness and weather.
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 flitches
- The meat that is preserved and cured by the salt over time.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and preserves the meat while curing it.
The step that matters
Change the salt every 4 to 5 days. Salt draws water out of the meat and dissolves into brine. If the salt becomes soggy and sopping, it stops drawing moisture and curing is uneven, so fresh salt keeps the cure working consistently.
“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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