To Pickle Pork for Immediate Use
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pickle
Boil the water, salt, sugar, and saltpetre together and skim off any impurities.
Pickle the pork
Cut the pork into desired pieces and pack it closely in a jar.
Pour the cooled pickle over the pork.
Place a weight on the pork to keep it submerged in the pickle.
Cover the jar tightly to keep out air; it will be ready to use in a week.
If the pickle begins to spoil, boil it again and skim it.
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 seasons it, helping preserve the meat.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the pork and gives the cured meat its characteristic colour.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the salt and adds mild sweetness to the cured pork.
The step that matters
Keep the pork fully submerged in the pickle. Meat exposed above the brine can spoil and grow mould, because air and contact with the surface let microbes take hold. A weight keeps every piece under the liquid, and the jar should be covered tightly to limit air.
“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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