So, I am starting to get interested in curing meats and sausages, and at the recommendation of the wonderful internet I gave my first shot at curing anything to a few pounds of pork belly with the mouth watering temptation of fresh, wonderful bacon.
Anyway, I used Michael Ruhlman's recipe for the cure and followed his instructions.
After I rubbed the cure all over and into the meat I put about a tablespoon of maple syrup on one side and massaged it into the meat -- was that a mistake?
I began thinking about it, and I'm probably overthinking it a bit, but could I have inadvertently negated the cure by rubbing in the Maple Syrup rather than mixing it into the cure mix? I'm not sure how it would affect it, since all I really did was added the syrup and then massaged the cure in even more on that one side, but hey, better safe than sorry, right?
I figured I better ask someone with a bit more knowledge than myself on this one before I fry up some bacon next weekend.