Ham, Kitchens and Gadgets
The 'everyday ham' put to cure on the 9th is ready. Like the idiot I am, I forgot to take a photo. It has been washed in cold water and put in the oven in a stockpot of water to cook. It will be in for a while yet as it's only cooking at 80°C. I'll cook it till it's about 72° in the middle then leave it in the liquid to cool. Photos of the finished ham will be posted tomorrow – if I remember this time!
Food production has virtually ceased in the Young household as we prepare for a new kitchen to be installed on Wednesday. It's amazing what a lot of useless equipment we've chucked out. What possessed us to think that half of it would be useful in the first place is what's bothering me!
So what will I keep? Well, first off, my knives – Henkel, Victorianox and Global. The Henkel are superb and well worth the investment. Secondly, my Kenwood Chef inc. liquidizer, mincer etc – my arms are just not up to bread making, mincing etc without it. Thirdly, my sausage stuffer – an indulgence but it makes light work of making sausages. I'll only list four to save boredom setting in so my last choice is a toss up between a few smaller items, potato 'speed' peeler, canelle knife and melon baller, little items that you don't necessarily use regularly but, don't take up to much room; my indian spice tins, Masala Dabbas, that are so much easier to use than having to open individual pots, and the coffee grinder that doubles as a spice grinder/breadcrumb maker.
Use the comments form to let me know your favourite piece of kitchen kit or for that matter the most useless!
There are four comments
It’s OK for smaller pieces of meat where the shorter cooking time means that it’s not so tender if finished at lower temps. The weight loss would scare you though!
For larger pieces of meat I put them into cold water and gradually raise the temp; I hold it around 65 – 70C until the meat is nearly done, then raise it to 70 – 75C until the meat has an internal of 68C.
You’ll appreciate that with the equipment in a home kitchen, these figures are a bit ‘ish’.
My preferred method is to cook the ham in a food grade cooking bag. If I don’t have one big enough I either cook the meat submerged, or sometimes on a rack over water with the temp around it less than 80C.
I'm somewhat incapacitated at present so replies may take some time. Please post urgent enquiries at the www.sausagemaking.org forum.
Hi, what coffee grinder/spice mixer do you use? thanks.