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To Cure English Bacon

This recipe describes curing hog meat into English bacon using salt, sugar, saltpetre, and smoking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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To Cure English Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the dressed and cooled hog into proper pieces.

  2. Mix 4 quarts of coarse sea salt, ¼ pound of saltpetre, and 4 pounds of sugar.

  3. Rub the mixture thoroughly over each piece of meat.

Cure

  1. Place the pieces in a tight tub or suitable cask.

  2. Baste the meat with the brine formed from its juices 2-3 times a week. Turn each piece each time.

Smoke

  1. Smoke the bacon for 3 weeks to a month using black birch chips or hickory.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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 meat and fat that the cure penetrates and turns into bacon.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it while helping preserve it.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the cured meat and gives it its characteristic pink colour.
Sugar
Balances the salt and adds sweetness to the finished bacon.

The step that matters

Basting and turning during the cure. Salt and sugar must reach every part of the meat, and the brine formed from its juices needs to be redistributed. Skipping basting or turning leaves uneven curing, so some areas may spoil or taste too salty.

“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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