Well, not exactly, but pretty close. River Cottage recommended the use of something called PDV salt for curing. PDV stands for pure dried vacuum. It’s made by pumping water into underground rock salt beds, then drying the brine under vacuum.
The only downside? It comes in 25kg bags!
I’d wrongly thought that it was literally pure. In fact it does contain an anti-caking agent, E535, Sodium Ferrocyanide. That sounds worse than it is – it’s quite benign. The key thing is that it doesn’t contain any carbonates or other salts that can interfere with curing.
Oh, and especially in 25kg bags, it’s a third of the price or less of anything suitable that you can buy in the supermarket.
Looks like home-cured bacon to go with our lovely fresh eggs for some time to come! And, of course, we’re doing a Wiltshire sweet-cured ham for Christmas.
John Norman's Blog 