Pickled Pork
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the brine
Make a brine with 1 cup coarse sea salt and 1 tablespoon saltpetre, strong enough to float an egg.
Skim the brine and let it cool.
Cure the pork
Stand fresh side meat upright in a new 4‑gallon jar, not too close together.
Cover the jar with cheesecloth and let it stand for one week.
Remove the brine and add fresh brine made the same way.
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
- Fresh side meat
- The main cut being cured, which absorbs the brine over the curing period.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it, helping preserve the pork.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the pork and gives cured meat its characteristic colour.
The step that matters
Making the brine strong enough to float an egg. A brine that is too weak will not preserve the meat or season it properly. Floating an egg is a simple visual check that the salt concentration is high enough to cure the pork safely over the week.
“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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