The Morton Salt Book: Curing Meat at Home

Enlarge Image Image Gallery A selection of the pork cutlets you could make when you're curing meat at home. PHOTO: MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

OK, Homesteaders . . . here's the third installment of Morton Salt's superior booklet, A COMPLETE GUIDE TO HOME MEAT CURING. This section takes you the rest of the way through preserving pork and into curing poultry. We'll be serializing more from the Morton Salt handbook in future issues .

Again, our special thanks to Murray J. Pearthree, Morton Salt Regional Sales Manager, for granting us written permission to reprint from the booklet.

Curing Ham

BONING AND ROLLING A HAM Boning a Ham: Lay ham skin side down with butt end toward you. With boning knife remove meat from around aitch bone and disjoint aitch bone from straight leg bone. Then remove entire leg bone and shank bones by cutting through top of ham along these bones and trimming around them. When the bones have been removed, mold ham back into shape, and tie with heavy white cord. The cord should be tied around the ham crosswise about every inch. 

Canadian Bacon

A delight to the palate and a treat that you can now enjoy. Canadian Style Bacon is one of the highest quality and most delicious pork cuts that you can cure. It is made by curing the loins then tightly wrapping them. 

Few people who do not raise their own meat and do their own curing can afford to eat this tasty delicacy.

Canadian Style Bacon is not only delicious. but it keeps well and once you try it you will always want a supply of these sweet, juicy cured loins along with your hams, shoulders, and regular bacon.

You can use either the Dry Cure or the Sweet Pickle Cure with Morton Tender-Quick. The Sweet Pickle Cure is generally preferred.

Trim loins from bacon sides, separate the loins from the backbone, and cut the loin in half in order to get them in a small crock for the Pickle Cure or a medium size box for the Dry Cure.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE SWEET PICKLE CURE Pack the loins in a stone crock, standing them on end if the crock is not wide enough to lay them down. Make a curing pickle by mixing at the rate of 2 lbs. Tender-Quick per gallon of water. The water should first be boiled and allowed to cool. Stir the pickle until all of the Tender-Quick dissolves, then pour the TenderQuick curing pickle over the loins until they are fully covered, and weight them down with a clean stone or other weight to keep them below the pickle.

Overhaul the loins and change the position of the pieces after they have been in cure about 5 days. Loins from average size hogs should remain in cure for about 2 weeks. When cured. remove the loins from the pickle, soak in tepid water for about 30 minutes and wash. Then let the loin dry thoroughly. After they are dry, rub liberally with a mixture of corn meal and black or red pepper, and wrap each loin separately in muslin or other clean cloth. The cloth should be a few inches longer than the loin. Make a tight roll and gather the cloth at one end and tie tightly with a string. Then make half hitch loops around the wrapped loin about every 1 1/2" to the other end and tie, leaving enough string for hanging up the loins. Before wrapping, the loins may be hung and given a light smoke, especially if loins are to be kept for some time.