How to Salt Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Make the brine
Boil the water with salt, saltpetre, sugar, aromatics, and peppercorns.
Let the liquid cool.
Cure the meat
Arrange the pieces of meat in a tub or small cask.
Cover the meat with the cooled liquid.
Place a wooden round over the meat and add a weight to keep it submerged.
Turn the meat from time to time.
Salt a tongue for 12 days; salt a buttock of beef or sirloin for 15 days.
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 water out of the meat and seasons it, helping preserve it during curing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps keep the meat pink and adds the characteristic cured flavour.
- Raw sugar
- Balances the saltiness and adds a mild sweetness to the cured meat.
The step that matters
Keep the meat fully submerged under the cooled brine. Any part of the meat left above the liquid can spoil or dry out, since the brine's salt and curing agents only preserve what they touch. A weight and wooden round keep every piece covered for the full curing time.
“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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