deb wrote:Bob, could you tell me what is Morton's Tender Quick?
Anyone know what we would use in the U.K. in it's place?
Thanks.
It is a curing agent made of salt, sugar, sodium nitrite, sodium nitrate and propylene glycol to keep the mixture uniform. The salt and sugar are fillers because the amount of the other ingredients is very small. Sodium nitrite is the active ingredient whereas sodium nitrate is the time release agent that slowly converts to sodium nitrite.
It is equivalent to Prague Powder #2. It is recommended for dry cure sausages because they need the time release effect.
I use it only in jerky recipes, since I cook all my sausage. I tried hanging a sausage laced with curing salt once but it got mold all over it from the high humidity in Houston.
Here's a comment adapted from the Allied Kenco website:
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Prague Powder #2
Used with dry-cured products, it has 1 oz. of sodium nitrite with 0.64 oz. of sodium nitrate to each lb. of salt. Use with products that do not require cooking, smoking, or refrigeration. This cure, which is sodium nitrate, acts like a time release, slowing breaking down into sodium nitrite, then into nitric oxide. This allows you to dry cure products that take much longer to cure. A cure with sodium nitrite would dissipate too quickly.
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