Curing meat is apparently a lot easier than one would expect. Of course, until the invention of the fridge it was the main way to preserve meat.
Why bother when bacon and ham is so easily available on the high street, many people would say. The answer is simple. Modern curing techniques quickly inject preserves into the meat, making the end product salty and heavier. Old methods take time to extract water from the meat using salt, marinades and/or air, making it lighter. As meat is sold by the kilo and time is money, it is obvious which method has become the most popular.
But what about flavour? Meat with water extracted is bound to taste better than meat with added water and preservative. Some of the best bacon and ham I have tasted went through a process of curing in a vat of stout and molasses for 4 weeks before being cold smoked for 2 days.
There are hundreds of recipes for curing meat the traditional way, all using different processes but all have in common the ingredients of salt, sugar or air. The secret is to remove the water from the meat.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is a great curing enthusiast and has a number of recipes and ideas in his Meat book, from dry curing with salt, to different brine mixes and smoking. The basics are as follows;
• When curing in a brine mix always follow a concentration of 1kg of salt to 3 litres of water. Adding herbs and spices to taste.
• When dry curing use handfuls of salt and/or sugar to extract the water from the meat. A pork bellie for bacon takes about a week of rubbing salt in every day, whereas a whole leg of pork may take 4 – 6 weeks left in a box with weight on top.
• Air drying is not strictly a way of curing meat but of maturing and intensifying the flavour of previously cured meat.
• Like air drying cold smoking is not a very effective curing process unless the meat is salted first. It does however add flavour and contribute to the preserving process.
• Curing does not make the meat last indefinitely but as a rule the more water extracted the longer the meat will last.
For more information and recipes on curing we suggest a visit to Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s Rivercottage and visit his forum to talk to people on-line who already cure their own meat.