The Gascon salted pork called Ventrèche is bacon that at its most traditional seems to be cured with just salt as a curing agent. However, commercially produced varieties seem to contain nitrite curing salts.
Internet searches indicate that it’s salted or cured, rolled or flat, smoked or unsmoked, salt-pork or bacon, with or without nitrite/nitrate curing salts, used fresh or hung to dry, with or without garlic! There seems a concensus that it’s got a layer of black pepper over the meat though. Well, that’s nice and clear then!
In the end, I decided to make a type of bacon that I fancied using in cassoulet and other dishes requiring lardons. Something with a bit more oomph than my normal bacon, but less than a fully dried pancetta. It’s quite salty at over 3% salt with only 1% sugar.
My wife calls it Ventress bacon after PC Alf Ventress from the TV series Heartbeat! Here’s the recipe:
Ventrèche
To each 1 kg of Pork belly or pro-rata:
Salt 30 gm
Demerara Sugar 10gm
Saltpetre 0.17gm
Cure #1 – 2.4gm
Fresh Garlic finely chopped 1 clove (optional)
After curing: Ground Black Pepper
See below for a cure calculator.
Mix the ingredients and rub well into the meat. Place in a food-grade bag, or vac-pack, and put it into a fridge, preferably at 6°C to 8°C, for 10 – 15 days, turning the bag over and giving the meat a good rub (through the bag) every couple of days. Rinse the meat under cold water, rub dry, and leave to dry further for 24 – 48 hours in a fridge. Dust the meat side with a good layer of ground black pepper:
And then roll it up as tight as you can – knowing the Butchers’ knot is a great help when doing this.
You now want to put it somewhere cool to dry – a temperature of 12°C to 15°C with a relative humidity around 70 to 75% is ideal. If this isn’t possible go for cooler rather than warmer.
It’s now up to you how long you want to dry it for. As mine is to make lardons for cooking, I don’t want it too dry so I’ve only hung it for 10 days during which time it’s only lost about 7% of its weight. It looks pretty good:
It’s easier to use this Ventreche Calculator than to calculate your own amounts: