Miss Corson's practical American cookery and household management

For eighteen pounds of meat, pound to a powder half an ounce of saltpetre and an ounce of brown sugar, and rub the mixture well into the meat ; make enough brine to cover the meat, by dissolving in water all the bay salt it will receive ; boil it up, and skim it, then cool it, and pour it over the meat in the pickling-tub ; for four days take the meat out of the brine every day, rub into it the above quantity of saltpetre and sugar, and replace it in the brine ; after four days, turn the meat every day in the brine for ten days ; it will then be ready to smoke for eight days, or may remain in the pickle simply as corned meat. SMOKING MEAT. The best wood for smoking meat is oak, and, where a barrel is used, oak sawdust ; green hickory and maple are used in New England ; dried corn-cobs make a good smoke ; pine wood should never be used for smoking meat. In the small stove or furnace, shown in the illustration of the smoking-closet, a fire is first made of charcoal. Upon the live coals a thick layer of sawdust is spread ; and over that half a dozen bay-leaves, a bunch of dried thyme, and twenty juniper-berries are laid. The fire is kept smouldering by renewing the sawdust, and fresh herbs are added every other day, as long as meat is kept in the smoking-closet. KNICKERBOCKER DRIED BEEF. Use a piece of the round of beef, weighing from six to ten pounds. After trimming it, rub it all over with brown sugar once a day for three weeks. After rubbing it with sugar every day, rub it well with common salt and powdered saltpetre, using an ounce of saltpetre to four pounds of sugar, and double that quantity of salt ; the action of the saltpetre is to redden and harden the beef. After the beef is salted, turn it every day for two weeks, and keep it in a cool place. At the end of two weeks, roll the beef tightly in a coarse cloth, and hang it in wood smoke for ten days, turning it bottom up every day; it will then be ready to shave and use as smoked beef, or to boil and slice when cold ; or, cook it like frizzled ham. HOW TO CURE HAMS. To twenty-five pounds of meat, — the hams to be weighed after they are trimmed, — allow three pints of coarse salt, four ounces of saltpetre, and a quart of molasses ; mix these ingredients thoroughly without boiling them, adding enough cold water to cover the hams ; pack the hams in a barrel, pour the brine over them, weight them with a stone to keep them down, and cover the barrel. At the end of every week change them, putting the top ones on the bottom ; let them stand in the brine for five weeks, and then smoke them for three weeks in the smoke of burning sawdust and corn-cobs, or green hickory or maple. The same brine may be used again by adding more salt to it. A boiled brine may be made by boiling and skimming clear three gallons of water, four and a half pounds of salt, a pound and a half of brown sugar, an ounce and a half of saltpetre, half an ounce of saleratus, and two quarts of molasses ; after the brine is skimmed quite clear, cool it, and then pour it over the meat. After the hams are smoked, they should be wrapped in stiff brown paper, and then sewed up in thick cloth. They can be hung in a cool dry place, or packed in barrels with layers of coarse dry salt, powdered charcoal, or clean wood ashes.