Kentish Mode of Cutting Up and Curing a Pig
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pork
For a 16 stone pig (about 114 pounds), set aside the hams and cheeks for curing.
Salt the feet, ears, tail, and head parts for immediate eating.
Reserve the blade-bones, ends of the loins, and ribs for sausage meat, and the loin and spare ribs for roasting.
Cure the pork
Mix the saltpetre, sugar, and bay salt.
Rub the mixture all over the pork.
Cover the bottom of a pickling tub with salt.
Pack the pork tightly in the tub.
Add salt between each layer of pork.
Avoid adding water unless necessary.
Brine and keep
If the brine does not cover the meat in two weeks, boil a brine with salt, saltpetre, sugar, and bay salt.
Cool the boiled brine.
Pour the cooled brine over the pork.
Place a board with a heavy weight on the meat to keep it submerged in the brine.
After 3 to 4 months, the pork will be ready to serve as pickled pork.
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 pork and preserves the meat by limiting bacterial growth.
- Saltpetre
- Helps keep the cured meat's pink colour and adds preserving action.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the salt's harshness and adds mild sweetness to the cured pork.
- Bay salt
- Coarse salt that cures the pork, drawing out moisture and seasoning the meat.
The step that matters
Keeping the pork submerged in brine. Meat above the brine line can spoil or grow mould, so the weighted board must hold every piece fully under the liquid throughout the long cure.
“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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