I wanted to try my hand at doing some Venison Pastrami and figured the easiest
way for a first timer was to use Morton Tender Quick as the cure. I wrote to
Morton to find out where I could find it and they were not much help. I really
didn't want to go mail order, but wanted to pick it up at the market? Can't
seem to find it anywhere. Do any of you use it? Where do you get it? or is
mail order the only source. I am in Northern NJ USA.

John213a wrote:
I wanted to try my hand at doing some Venison Pastrami and figured the easiest
way for a first timer was to use Morton Tender Quick as the cure. I wrote to
Morton to find out where I could find it and they were not much help. I really
didn't want to go mail order, but wanted to pick it up at the market? Can't
seem to find it anywhere. Do any of you use it? Where do you get it? or is
mail order the only source. I am in Northern NJ USA.


It's at just about every grocery store here, by the large boxes of table
salt (2 pounds?) and the small bags of ice cream salt.

If you have to mail order it, don't. Instead buy Instacure or Prague
Powder (they're the same thing) and mix with your own salt.

Bob

1) Cumberland General Store Crossville TN 1-800-334-4640 carries tenderquick
2) instacure #1 or 2 is not same as Tenderquick u need differant more
complicated recipe to use as it is only a base preserving chemical and not a
flavoring product also as in Tenderquick.

also prague powder aka instacure already has salt in it as it is a salt based
product

BCHUKB wrote:
1) Cumberland General Store Crossville TN 1-800-334-4640 carries tenderquick
2) instacure #1 or 2 is not same as Tenderquick u need differant more
complicated recipe to use as it is only a base preserving chemical and not a
flavoring product also as in Tenderquick.


You might be thinking of Morton's "Sugar Cure". Tenderquick is just
salt, sodium nitrite, and sodium nitrate. You can make you own with
salt and Instacure or Prague Powder.

For most cured meats, it doesn't make any difference whether you use
just nitrite or nitrite-plus-nitrate. All the nitrate does is provide a
delayed release form of nitrite that is useful for cured meats that will
be stored a *long* time.

Best regards,
Bob

BCHUKB wrote:

also prague powder aka instacure already has salt in it as it is a salt based
product


Prague powder is a 15:1 mixture of salt and sodium nitrite, with a
little pink food coloring in it. The salt is used just to dilute the
sodium nitrite so you can accurately measure the small amounts used in
curing and so you can distribute it more evenly in the meat. The pink
food coloring is to identify it as cure, so it's not mistaken for salt.

Bob