Kentish Mode of Cutting Up and Curing a Pig
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pork
Set aside the hams and cheeks for separate curing.
Salt the feet, ears, tail, and eye-parts of the head for immediate consumption.
Reserve the blade bones, ends of the loins, and ribs for sausage meat.
Keep the loin and spare ribs for roasting.
Cure the pork
Mix the saltpetre, sugar, and bay salt together.
Rub the mixture gently over the pork.
Cover the bottom of a pickling tub with salt and pack the pork tightly, adding salt between layers.
Avoid adding water unless necessary; if the meat does not rise in a fortnight, boil a strong brine of salt, saltpetre, sugar, and bay salt, let it cool, and pour it over the pork.
Place a board with a heavy stone on top to keep the meat submerged.
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 out moisture and preserves the meat by slowing bacterial growth.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the cured color and adds a characteristic cured flavor.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the salt's sharpness and feeds flavor development during curing.
- Bay salt
- Adds coarse salinity that penetrates the pork and helps preserve it.
The step that matters
Packing the pork in the tub. Pork must be packed tightly with salt between layers and kept fully submerged under weight. Any exposed meat can spoil, since salt only preserves where it has penetrated and brine is what keeps air away from the surface.
“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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