Rub each piece of meat with fine common salt and pack closely in a barrel. Let stand over night. The next day, weigh out twelve pounds of salt and three ounces of saltpeter to each one hundred pounds of meat, and dissolve in four gallons of boiling water. When cold, pour this pickle over the meat, cover and weight down to keep the meat under the brine. The meat will pack best if cut into pieces about six inches square.
§ 40. Dry Cured Pork
For each one hundred pounds of meat, weigh cut eight pounds of salt, two pounds of granulated sugar, and two ounces of saltpeter. Mix thoroughly, and rub the meat once every three days, using a third of the mixture at each rubbing. Keep the meat on a shelf, or in a vessel, while curing. After the last rubbing, allow the meat to remain in a vessel for about ten days, when it is cured and ready to smoke. To cure nicely, it is desirable to have a cool and rather moist place in which to keep it.
This recipe should not be used where the meat must be kept in a warm dry place, as the preservatives will not penetrate easily and uniformly under such conditions.
§ 41. Sugar Cured Pork
Rub each piece with salt and allow to remain over night. A wet pickle, or brine, may also be forced into the hams and shoulders close to the bone with a special pump, using from 5 to 10 ounces of the pickle or brine for each piece, the amount depending on the size of the piece. The following morning pack in a vessel with the hams and shoulders at the bottom and the bacon on the top. For each one hundred pounds of meat, weigh out eight pounds of salt, two pounds of brown sugar, two ounces of saltpeter, and one-half pound baking soda. Dissolve all in four gallons of water, and cover the meat with this wet pickle. In warm weather, the pickle should be boiled and thoroughly cooled before using. A board and stone should be used to weight down the meat. Bacon strips should remain in the pickle from three to four weeks, and the hams and shoulders five to seven weeks, depending on their size. If desired, the meat may then be smoked. Before being smoked meat should be soaked for several hours in clean water at about 80 degrees Fahrenheit to remove the excess salt on the surface of the meat and thus make the meat more palatable. In soaking the meat about one-half pint of water should be used for each pound of meat.[1] The Canton Christian College has had very good success with this cure.
§ 42. Pork Sausage
Pork sausage should be made from clean, fresh pork only. The parts generally used are the shoulder, neck, and lean meat trimmings. About three pounds of lean meat should be used to one pound of fat meat. Mix the fat and lean meat together in chopping. With some cutters it is necessary to run the meat through twice in order to make it fine enough and to mix thoroughly the lean with the fat meat. After it has been cut the first time, spread thinly and season. For each 100 pounds of meat, use one and one-half pounds of pure, fine salt, four ounces of ground black pepper, and two pounds of pure leaf sage, rubbed fine. The seasoning should be sprinkled over the meat, and the meat again run through the cutter, in order to mix the spice thoroughly with the meat. For immediate use, the sausage may be packed away in jars. It may be kept for some time in a jar if melted lard is poured over the top, so as to exclude the air. The sausage may also be stuffed into muslin bags about two inches in diameter. If the stuffed bags are coated with paraffin, they will keep for some time.
§ 43. Mixed Meat Sausage
Mixed sausage may be made from a mixture of pork and beef in almost any proportion. Sausage should not contain too much fat. A good proportion is two pounds of lean pork, one pound of fat pork, and one pound of lean beef.