Excellent Bacon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pork
Divide the hog and remove the chine.
Cure the bacon
Mix the salt, saltpetre, and sugar together.
Rub the mixture well into the bacon.
Salt the bacon for 6 days.
Drain the bacon.
Turn the bacon every day for a month.
Smoke and dry
Drain and smoke the bacon for a few days.
Dry it by hanging in the kitchen, away from the fire.
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
- Hog
- Provides the pork belly and sides that become the bacon.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the meat while helping preserve it.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives cured bacon its characteristic pink colour.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the saltiness and adds mild sweetness to the cure.
The step that matters
Rubbing the cure in well. Salt and curing agents only preserve the meat where they reach. Thorough, even rubbing ensures the cure penetrates the whole piece, while uneven coverage can leave spoilage-prone 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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