making cured meats in hot climates

[chinasausageseeker]

this is my first post here....I'm a Yorkshire lad living in southern China and so far my attempts to recreate the tastes of home have been limited to sausages, pork piese and bacon (using an American recipe cos I hadnt found this site then)...now its time to get more adventurous as winter is on us here and the temperature has dropped to a balmy 15-20c

My situation:
I have about as much chance of getting cure number 1 and all this other stuff i see mentioned as OJ has of getting out of jail next year...i need basics..i can get salt sugar pork casings...and thats it.
' it aint arf hot mum' as they say...daytime temperatures of 15-20c, nightime maybe 5-10...but thats only gonna last for about 3 months, then they turn the oven back on

so what cured meats can i do? I'd love to try Lomo...and if anyone can offer me hope of making chorizo I'd marry them if it were legal.

if i have no hope then put me out of my misery so i can concentrate my efforts on bacon sausages and growlers...but i do want to ask about cheese next!

[saucisson]

Welcome to the forum,

You might be able to do it if you can hang overnight and get it into a fridge for the heat of the day. Or set a dedicated fridge up at curing temperatures, or get one of those little wine coolers. Is there anyway you could obtain saltpetre (a constituent of gunpowder ) ?

Dave

[chinasausageseeker]

thanks for the connection..saltpetre...gunpowder...china.
i've just spent a few minutes on google trying to find suppliers here....with limited sucess
one website came up with a link to fireworks....can i buy a firework and use the powder from that? only joking.
i've found companies making saltpetre now but they all seem to be fertilizer companies ( yea yea lot of **** companies in china i know)...does this need to be special food grade stuff?...and i've probably got to buy a container load of the stuff....

can anything be done without this ingredient??

[chinasausageseeker]

Dave, yes Ii can set up a dedicated fridge to do this definitely...more reliable than my maid trying to remember to pop the meat in the fridge when she gets to work. i'd rather buy a proper fridge than one of these little peltier coolers ( I assume thats what you refer to as the little wine coolers)..it gets so hot and humid here in summer that i'd rather invest in a solution that will work year round. what kind of curing temoeratures and humidities are required?

[saucisson]

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall of River Cottage fame often cures without them, and many of the Mediterranean countries traditionally cured using only sea salt ( but I suspect the Med naturally has "unnatural" levels of nitrate/nitrite in it's salt ). You should try and get food grade saltpetre if you can find it.

Dave

[chinasausageseeker]

so...assuming i can only get firework or farm grade saltpetre and therefore my cured pork is saltpetre free...and assuming i invest in a fridge...can i make some cured meats? is it a similar process to curing bacon? its just the raw bit that bothers me this being china...i can guarantee the pork is fresh...very fresh...if that is a requirement. but does the saltpetre act as some kind of germicide/bacteriacide to cleanse the meat?

my previous bacon cures have been streaky bacon made from what they call here 5 treasure pork, chinese sea salt, sugar and ground chillis ( a personal choice) and they worked fine...cured in my fridge for a week or more, draining off the water as the us recipe indicated...andl they tasted fine in sarneys and I didnt need to visit the doctor....just the colour not very baconny whcih i read was down to the absence of the above elusive ingredient.

[saucisson]

The cure inhibits Clostridium Botulinum which although rare is devastatingly fatal in minute doses. It also gives the nice pink colour to cured meats. If you can't get it then air dried products you don't cook are probably best not attempted...

Dave

[Sojourn]

Ni Hao chinasausageseeker,

Are there any legal reasons saltpetre cannot be shipped abroad? I understand the many illegal uses but in small amounts for food it should be ok.

I know what you mean when you say the pork will be very fresh, the Chinese keep food fresh the best way, kill it last minute...

Good luck,

Sojourn

[chinasausageseeker]

i'm impressed...not many wei guo ren can even stretch to that basic greeting. i tried importing chilli powder earlier this year...it got burnt at customs. importing of liquids and powders were banned before the olympics and so far the ban hasn't been lifted....shuo bu liao as we say...unbearable. but then unbearable is a way of life here. if you are heading this way then pop some in your suitcase please...

China does fresh very well...at the risk of offending the sqeemish I've been to my butcher and the muscles have still been twitching as the cut i wanted was cut from the freshly slaughtered pig...it takes a while to get used to but i never query the freshness.

it looks like my cured meat desires will have to wait till after my next trip to blighty to buy the ingredients.

[lemonD]

Here you go, http://www.youtube.com/v/PHnoYiGltZU
Get your mad scientist wig on and a pair of earplugs

LD

[Sojourn]

Takes me back to my days doing a degree in biomedical science - I then worked for Amersham Biosciences and then GE Healthcare...maybe I could dust off my labcoat...when I was a student though KNO3 was the last thing I wanted to synthesize