Putting Food By - Janet Greene [162]
Proceed in every way as for Sauerkraut.
Sour Rutabagas
Handle like White Turnips.
Souring Other Lower-Acid Vegetables
Even though correct fermentation raises the acidity (lowers the pH rating) of lower-acid raw vegetables, unless they are heat-processed for storage, they cannot be regarded as safe from spoilage or from growth of certain dangerous heat-sensitive bacteria.
So, because you should can them anyway for safe storage, it doesn’t make much sense to go through the business of fermenting them as a preamble to putting them by for serving much later as accompaniments to meat or whatever.
SALTING MEAT
The four keys to successful salt-curing of any meat are (1) strictly fresh meat to start with, properly handled and chilled, (2) sanitation, (3) temperature control, and (4) salt content. The same quality, cleanliness, and care required for canning or freezing meat obtain in the procedures described below. In the specific instructions we give the exact proportions of salt required to do each job.
However, temperature control demands special emphasis here. The meat must be kept chilled—held as constantly as possible at 38 F—before curing; this is why country-dwellers wait for winter weather to slaughter hogs and beef for their own tables. Once in the cure, meat should be held 36–38 F/2–3 C; for the largest pieces this means a thermometer inserted to the center of the meatiest part.
Below 36 F/2 C, salt penetrates the tissues too slowly. If the temperature of the storage area drops below freezing and stays there for several days, increase the days of salting time by the number of freezing days.
Above 38 F/3 C, the chances of spoilage increase geometrically with each degree of rise in temperature, and the cure changes from a clear, fresh liquid to a stringy-textured goo. It is the rare modern home that has natural storage constantly cool enough for curing meat right. Indeed, failure to ensure good temperature control is the main cause of unsuccessful curing in town and country alike. For most people, it is safest to cure meats in a spare refrigerator with accurate temperature controls. (Do not use your everyday refrigerator; its temperature fluctuates too much when the door is opened and closed.) Equip the refrigerator with a thermometer, preferably one that reads externally, and adjust the temperature as necessary.
In general, home-frozen meats do not cure well: even when defrosted completely, their texture has been changed too much to allow the cure to penetrate the tissues uniformly.
The term “pickle” is used in some manuals to designate a sweetened brine that contains some sugar as well as salt; it is not the solution with added vinegar that is described for pickles. “Sugar cure” usually means adding ¼ as much sweetener as there is salt in the mixture; this amount of sugar is important as food for benign flavor-producing bacteria during long cures.
Salt-curing of meats is almost always followed by exposure to smoke in order to dry the surface of the meat, to add flavor, and to discourage attacks by insects. Smoking procedures are described in detail in the section following this one.
“Saltpeter” and Nitrates/Nitrites
For generations, householders—and, back in less technologically sophisticated times, commercial processors too—used saltpeter in the cures for many meats and meat products. What is still called saltpeter is either potassium nitrate or sodium nitrate. If you buy the substance at a drugstore, you are likely to get the compound with potassium, and note that it is labeled as a diuretic. If you buy it at a farm-supply store or specialty food shop, it will probably be sodium nitrate. Many store-bought curing mixtures already made up—some even containing spices and simulated hickory-smoke flavoring