Bacon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pig
Remove the chine from the pig, leaving the spare ribs.
Salt the pig with common salt and let it drain on a table.
After 10-12 days, turn it daily and salt it again.
Scrape it clean, rub with a little dry salt, and hang it up.
Cure and smoke
Mix saltpetre and sugar, then rub the mixture on the pork.
Place the pork in a container to hold the pickle and rub it well with the mixture.
Baste the pork with the pickle every day for a week.
Hang the pork in a wood smoke to finish.
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 out moisture and preserves the meat during curing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps keep the cured meat's pink colour and adds a preserving effect.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the salt and softens the sharpness of the cure.
The step that matters
Basting the pork with the pickle every day for a week. Salt has to reach the whole piece evenly. Daily basting keeps the surface moist and the brine working, so the cure penetrates without drying out or spoiling in spots.
“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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