Salting Pork
Ingredients
Directions
Layer the salt
Cover the bottom of a barrel with 1 inch of salt.
Place a layer of pork in the barrel and cover it with ½ inch of salt.
Repeat layering pork and salt until all pork is used.
Brine and keep submerged
Pour strong brine over the pork, ensuring it is packed tightly with the rind side down.
Keep the pork submerged in brine using an inner cover and clean stones.
If scum forms, pour off the brine, scald it, and add more salt.
Old brine can be boiled down, skimmed, and reused.
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
- Salt
- Draws moisture out of the pork and preserves it against spoilage.
- Pork
- The meat being cured; its texture firms as salt penetrates.
- Strong brine
- Keeps the pork fully covered so the surface does not spoil or dry out.
The step that matters
Keeping the pork submerged in brine. Any meat exposed above the brine can spoil or develop scum, since air and bacteria reach it. Packing tightly and weighting with an inner cover and stones keeps every piece under the brine throughout the 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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