Salting Pork

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Janne

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Feb 10, 2016
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Salting meats and fish not only preserves, but brings out other tastes and flavours.
Salted pork, beef, fish is a traditional staple here in the Caibbean.
Salt Fish and ( ackee, brown sauce, fried, steamed)
Salt Beef (beef navel) and beans ( tomato sauce, peas, soup)
Salt Pork ( pork tails) and beans, stew, soup

I salt my cod loins I fish and import. Lamb. Pork.
A tip: mix the salt with coarse pepper and dry herbs.
Also, remove the fat. A layer of fat prevents salt from penetrating the meat.

In winter, use your garage, or cellar, or loft. In summer, fridge, wine storage.

I find a cool environment better for the flavour.
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
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Salt is great. We still salt pork of course. Proper, dry cured, bacon is salt cured (as opposed to the brine used in wet cure). There are health issues associated with salt & salt petre of course. But there are health issues with white rice, potatoes and celery!

We did a complete "how to" on home made, dry cured, bacon recently. Meat curing at home is absurdly simple, cheap and delicious and I would encourage anyone who is interested to just give it a try.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDluIIoNPsle_0IV4sryTi76-pwXOP_PP
 
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Janne

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If you eat heavily salted food at every meal, and you have a high BP, then yes, salted meet is not the best for you.
But if you have a normal BP now, a bit of salted Pig will not do you any harm.

It will improve your Culinary Life though.....

Everything in moderation is the key to a happy life. Only you decide though what 'moderation' means!
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
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What do you mean by "health issues associated with salt"? If you mean the idea that salt gives you high blood pressure, then forgive my French, but "********" is the word that springs to mind...
Some evidence of blood pressure & heart issues sure. 20% increase in one particular type of cancer with salt petre. These are the reported issues. I can report similar issues on almost any foodstuff (e.g. bacon cured with celery salt often contains more nitrites than salt petre). However I like to include the relevant issues with sll our "how to" stuff. Then grown ups can do their own research and make informed decisions

You can check out the cure I make up below. Lots of salt & I stil use salt petre. I smoke our bacon too. But I know the risks

 
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British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
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Mercia
If you eat heavily salted food at every meal, and you have a high BP, then yes, salted meet is not the best for you.
But if you have a normal BP now, a bit of salted Pig will not do you any harm.

It will improve your Culinary Life though.....

Everything in moderation is the key to a happy life. Only you decide though what 'moderation' means!
Absolutely agreed. Making your own & better yet butchering your own (and best of all raising or taking your own) puts a person firmly control of what is on their plate.

Today I found a "traditional" pasty made with...palm oil! Mine are made with lard home rendered from leaf fat. I'll pit mine against the palm oil ones for taste, ethics & sustainability
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
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A point of human physiology, as I recall:

People with high blood pressure also have a high threshold to even taste salt.
That extra salt can and does compromise kidney function. That's the issue.

Me, OTOH, I'm "hyponatremic" = not enough salt.
So I add some from time to time, I can 'feel' it.
Salt uptake is active transport in that it requires energy.
So a sugar sweetened drink with the added salt is a simple fix for me.
 

Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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McBride, BC
I spent time in the outback in the years that I lived in OZ. We used "Saltadex" tablets ( salt + dextrose sugar).

Bacon is happy food, mood bending, mood altering food.
I recommend bacon for most ills, even for cranky children.
Bacon over a camp fire is a celebration of all things wonderful.

I used to be able to buy bacon slabs smoked so much the fat was orange.
Cut and fry strips no less than 1/4" thick. Keep you busy for 1/2 a day.
 

Janne

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Slow roasted pork belly is very nice.
I curse the TV chef that showed people how delicious it is.

Nice with home made apple sauce, German pickled Red Cabbage ( warm) and boiled potatoes.

Before cooking the belly, Score the skin heavily, then rub in lots and lots of coarse salt into the scored skin side, let marinade ( skin side down) in fridge a couple over the day.

Rub in lots of Caraway seeds before roasting.
 

Keith_Beef

Native
Sep 9, 2003
1,366
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55
Yvelines, north-west of Paris, France.
I spent time in the outback in the years that I lived in OZ. We used "Saltadex" tablets ( salt + dextrose sugar).

Bacon is happy food, mood bending, mood altering food.
I recommend bacon for most ills, even for cranky children.
Bacon over a camp fire is a celebration of all things wonderful.

I used to be able to buy bacon slabs smoked so much the fat was orange.
Cut and fry strips no less than 1/4" thick. Keep you busy for 1/2 a day.

The Jewish comfort food may well be chicken soup. The gentiles have bacon...

I remember eating joints of pork when I was a kid... A big shoulder of pork, with the rind on, scored, the rind would go crispy and crunchy like pork scratchings. Delicious stuff and it's a real shame that here in France the butchers always sell pork without the rind, except for one cut: rouelle. This is a slice off the top end of a back leg.
 
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Janne

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That would be the New York Jewish people?.
I think a Chulent is more comforting for our European Jewish friends...

But, as one of my friends said when I pointed out to him that he was loading up his plate with Roast Pork on a Sunday Brunch - "I do not need to know his name".
:)

(I have also partly that Ancestry )
 
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Keith_Beef

Native
Sep 9, 2003
1,366
268
55
Yvelines, north-west of Paris, France.
The Jewish comfort food may well be chicken soup. The gentiles have bacon...
That would be the New York Jewish people?.
I think a Chulent is more comforting for our European Jewish friends...

Or a kugel?

(I have ancestry of a certain religion....)

Or as I know it, cholent... long slow cooking: beans, barley, potatoes and some kind of meat, set up before shabat, so you don't have to ask a shabbas goy to come and tend the fire for you...

I don't have Jewish ancestry, but I have a lot of Jewish friends.
 
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Janne

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I think it depends on the climate, plus economic status.
A casserole like that is 'poor mans food'.

Most European cultures have a one pot dish like that.

Chicken was a huge luxury in the pre WW2 days.
"Boiler" hen was eaten a couple of times a year. Or young Cock.
The Hens you only killed and cooked when they stopped laying. Needed cooking for ever. But incredibly tasty!
 
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Keith_Beef

Native
Sep 9, 2003
1,366
268
55
Yvelines, north-west of Paris, France.
I think it depends on the climate, plus economic status.
A casserole like that is 'poor mans food'.

Most European cultures have a one pot dish like that.

Chicken was a huge luxury in the pre WW2 days.
"Boiler" hen was eaten a couple of times a year. Or young Cock.
The Hens you only killed and cooked when they stopped laying. Needed cooking for ever. But incredibly tasty!

How times have changed... Nowadays, if you want to find a older cock whose flesh is firm enough to hold together the time it takes to cook a "coq au vin", it's really hard.

(Where are you, Woody Girl?)

But broilers are ten a penny. Even young birds for spatchcocking are relatively affordable.
 

Janne

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Not broilers. Boilers.
Tough old birds.

When I lived in UK, one of the staffs husband was a farmer. I bought hogget, old hens, milk veal and 'old cow" from him.

Ever tried Capon?

Bl@@dy expensive, but nice. Castrated Cocks, grown for almost a year or so.
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
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McBride, BC
This isn't salt pork but I'd like to use a slab like this below, just to try it out.

Some chicken biochemistry for you:

As animals age, the composition of their connective tissue ( ligaments and tendons) will sometimes change.
In any case, the common components, collagen and elastin can be broken down, tenderized, with heat over time.
The key concept is that you can't rush this. It takes modest heat and a long time.

I cook all those tough things, pork side ribs, bison & beef country ribs, old chickens, lamb shanks (#1) and so on.
Indirect heat at 275F for 3 hours over a water dish. Some apple wood smoke for the first hour, no more.
Prepped with a herb & spice dry rub mix then don't touch them for 3 hours.
Everything is falling-off-the-bone tender. So, for really cheap, tough meats, you're a winner.

It doesn't matter any more to me in the store = the roughest, toughest cheap cuts are the best tasting.
 
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British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
1,947
Mercia
I think it depends on the climate, plus economic status.
A casserole like that is 'poor mans food'.

Most European cultures have a one pot dish like that.

Chicken was a huge luxury in the pre WW2 days.
"Boiler" hen was eaten a couple of times a year. Or young Cock.
The Hens you only killed and cooked when they stopped laying. Needed cooking for ever. But incredibly tasty!

Thats how we do it now. We keep a flock of c.8 traditional hens into Winter with one Autumn hatch cockerel. He is mature by Spring & all the hens bar one are on eggs or have chicks at foot now (so he is in the freezer). Of the 40 or so chicks that we now have half will be cockerels and so table birds. The best hens will become replacement breeding hens for us. We find hens after two years are still fine for roasting, beyond that soups & stews are better. Surplus POL hens we sell and that covers feed & bedding costs for the flock for the coming year. You need proper dual purpose traditional hens with a tendency to broodiness rather than the modern strains to work like that though.
 

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