ABOUT CURING SALTS, NITRITES, AND NITRATES.
Table salt and sodium nitrite are both ingredients in curing salts. Others also include sodium nitrate. They are used to prevent bacterial or fungal deterioration and to keep meats’ crimson color even after they have been preserved.
To reduce the risk of botulism poisoning, dry-cured sausages—which are not addressed in this book—always include curing salt. The cured meats listed below, unlike those that are dry-cured, are cooked before being kept in the refrigerator or freezer and don’t always need curing salts.
Remember that if you decide not to use the curing salts, your bacon or other cured meat won’t stay as long in the refrigerator as it would have. Additionally, rather of being reddish pink, the meat may be browner in hue.
Although salt (either alone or in combination with other chemicals) is usually used as the first step in curing animal products, subsequent steps include combining the curing process with additional food preservation techniques.
In contrast to bacon, which may or may not is smoked after being cured, salt fish and pancetta are air-dried after being salt-cured. Furthermore, drying time is beneficial for bacon that will be smoked after it has been cured. You get what I mean regarding the integrated ways of food preservation.
Curing
The first step in curing is to rub meat or fish with a combination of salt, sugar, and spices, and sometimes curing salts including sodium nitrite and/or sodium nitrate. The meal leaks liquid throughout the curing process and solidifies much more than it did at first. The alkaline remedy gets rid of surface microorganisms.
Smoking
There are two types of smoking: one that adds taste to food mainly and one that also helps preserve it by dehydrating it rather than frying it:
Smoking hot is done at temperatures of 150°F or higher, usually between 150 and 200°F.
While it cooks and adds tastes to the food, it doesn’t truly preserve it. 150 and 200 degrees Fahrenheit are really hot. While it cooks and adds tastes to the food, it doesn’t truly preserve it. Typically, a salt (or salt-and-sugar) cure completes the food preservation process before adding hot smoking.
At little below 100°F, cold smoking is practiced. In addition to imparting that umami smoke flavor, it dehydrates the food. The catch is that unless you invest in a smoker with controls, it’s quite difficult to maintain a regulated temperature of approximately 90°F for hours.
AROUND DISTINCT KINDS OF SMOKERS
A smoker may be anything from a simple, vented container placed over a small fire topped with moist wood chips to complex equipment costing thousands of dollars, along with numerous variants in between. Whether you want hot or cold smoking your meal will determine the type you require.
Because you will be hot smoking, a very basic smoker is suitable for merely adding flavor to meals, even already-cured meats like bacon.
However, if you’re going to manufacture anything that has to be cold smoked, you’ll need a smoker that, at the absolute least, has a temperature monitor and a mechanism to regulate and maintain a temperature that hovers around 90°F with little variation.
The majority of smokers use charcoal, although some also use gas.
For the majority of uses, a charcoal-burning smoker with an exact temperature gauge, movable vents, and a way to reduce the heat from the coals burning (such as a fitting water bowl between the fire and the food) will be enough.
Although they are reasonably priced, these simply constructed smokers need maintenance. By altering the quantity of water in price, opening and shutting the vents, and both. The temperature may be reasonably well controlled by opening and shutting the vents as well as changing the quantity of water in the buffer bowl.
IN REGARD TO DRYING AFTER CURING AND PRIOR TO SMOKING
A pellicle, a sticky covering, forms on cured meat after it is air dried. Smoke bonds to the pellicule in the smoker. Because of this, drying the bacon overnight after curing and before smoking will result in better-smoked bacon, for example.
Moroccan-Style Preserved Lemons
