To Fickle Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pickle
Boil salt, sugar, and saltpetre with water.
Skim the mixture and allow it to cool.
Pickle the meat
Immerse the meat completely in the pickle.
Place a heavy board or flat stone on the meat to keep it submerged.
Boil the pickle occasionally, adding more salt as needed to maintain strength.
Remove any scum that forms on the surface.
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 sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and inhibits spoilage microbes, preserving it.
- Sugar
- Softens the sharpness of the salt and adds mild sweetness and flavour.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives cured meat its characteristic pink colour.
The step that matters
Keep the meat fully submerged. Any meat left above the brine is exposed to air and microbes, so it can spoil. The cure also penetrates unevenly where it is not in contact with the liquid, so keeping the meat under the pickle, weighted down, matters for even preservation.
“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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