Kentish Mode of Cutting Up and Curing a Pig
Ingredients
Directions
Sort the pork
Set aside the hams and cheeks for curing separately.
Salt the feet, ears, tail, and eye-parts of the head for immediate eating.
Reserve the blade-bones, ends of the loins, and ribs for sausage meat.
Dry salt the pork
Rub the pork with a mixture of saltpetre, sugar, and coarse sea salt.
Cover the bottom of a pickling tub with salt.
Layer the pork tightly in the tub, adding salt between each layer.
Avoid adding water unless necessary.
Let the salt dissolve naturally.
Brine and cure
After two weeks, boil a strong brine of salt, saltpetre, sugar, and coarse sea salt.
Let the brine cool.
Pour the cooled brine over the pork.
Weigh the pork down with a board and a heavy stone.
Let the pork cure for 3 to 4 months.
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 preserves it during curing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives cured pork its characteristic pink colour.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the saltiness and adds a mild sweetness to the cured meat.
The step that matters
Let the brine cool.. Pouring hot brine over the pork would partly cook its surface and could make the cure uneven, so the brine should be fully cooled before use.
“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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