Local Food Heroes Blog

Monday, 28 12 09 - 19:22

Pauline's Ham

I hope you all had a great Christmas and got all the pressies that you asked for. We had a superb turkey from Clump Farm, a farm that's only about half a mile from here. That along with home-cured ham and bacon, home-made sausage and home-smoked cheese made for some great food.

Now, the ham was one of the best flavoured I've made, even if it did nearly cause a divorce! You see, whilst you may think that saying that my 'bread rolls are just like the supermarket's' is a compliment, most cooks will not. Likewise when Pauline said: "Can you cure a ham to taste like the supermarket's". Well, I ask you, what would you think? Anyway, when she got back from the hospital we discussed the ham further and I came up with a revised cure. Funnily enough it has a lot more salt; something that the family had always said they didn't want when I suggested it before regarding my bacon! Sometimes I think that I can't win, but with just me in the house and three women, I guess I can't!

The post-Christmas remains of 6 kg of ham:

Anyway, here's the new cure:

Pauline's Ham

Water 2810gm
Salt 680gm
Muscodavo Sugar 405gm
Cure #1 105gm
Juniper Berries 2
Cloves 2
Black Pepper Corns 4
Bay Leaves 1
Coriander seeds 4

Method

Weigh the spices then bash them about a bit. Put the water, salt, sugar and spices (in fact, everything except the Cure #1) into a pan and bring to the boil. Stir to dissolve the salt and sugar. Leave to cool.

Using water, make the weight back up to the original amount - that is the original weight of the water, salt, sugar and spices, added together. That's the total weight of everything except the Cure #1.

Mix the Cure #1 into the cooled brine mixture stirring to ensure that it is dissolved.

Weigh the meat and calculate 10% of its weight. Inject this weight of brine into the meat ensuring that you get brine into all areas of the meat.

Now put the meat into the remaining brine and put it in the fridge for around 5 - 7 days, turning the meat every day or two. My meat weighed 6kg so I gave it the full 7 days.

The meat was then rinsed, dried off, and left to dry further in the fridge overnight. You could smoke it at this stage if you wanted.

The other change I made was to the cooking method. I steamed this ham, keeping the temperature above the water to 80°C. The ham is cooked when the temperature of the centre of the meat reaches 75°C. I have found that this method results in less flavour loss and also less weight loss in the finished ham and that by cooking to 75°C, as against 72°C, it gives a more tender product. An alternative would be to cook it in a vacuum bag or boil-able 'roasting' bag in water at 75 - 80°C.

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