The Manner of Curing Wiltshire Bacon
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Sprinkle the flitch of bacon with salt and let the blood drain off for 24 hours.
Mix the coarse sugar, coarse sea salt, saltpetre, and common salt, then rub the mixture well onto the bacon, turning it every day for a month.
Dry and smoke
Hang the bacon to dry, then smoke it for 10 days.
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
- Bacon flitch
- The main meat, which the cure penetrates and firms as it draws out moisture.
- Common salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and helps preserve it during curing.
- Coarse sea salt
- Adds salinity and draws moisture out of the meat during curing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the bacon keep its pink colour and slows spoilage during curing.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the saltiness of the cure and adds mild sweetness.
The step that matters
Rubbing and turning the cure every day. Salt penetrates meat slowly, so the cure must be worked in evenly and the bacon turned daily. Uneven coverage lets some areas cure too little and spoil, while others become overly salty.
“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.
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.