The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: MAK on October 12, 2012, 01:03:05 pm
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:excited:
Following from another posts about life in a freezer.
We defrosted our whopper then wet cured it with 2 other joints for 10 days. Cooking them as hams today.
plan is to freeze some cooked ham in small packs that we can use as and when but I think we will be having a ham fest this weekend.
Martin
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PLEASE pls tell more. This joint is simply huge, it was meant to be for my extended family 16 people. I'm really not that keen in having to use some of it as a roast, then work out what to do with the rest.... Unless we could have a national TAS Sunday roast!
I've never wet cured (gammon and ham is always done by our butchers)... I dried cured some once but it was not so good tbh (a bit of a waste :( ) What do you do? We eat so much ham here, if I could make some up it would be absolutely ace.
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We defrosted the joint and boned it. I also remove skin.We had some cure left over from hamming and baconing a few months back. You can buy it online from Weschenfelders. Simply mix the cure with water.
No the challenge - you need to immerse the joint in the cure for 10 days and keep it at 4-5 degrees. We have a large camping fridge and put the meat in a bin bag inside the fridge then added the cure.
Turn or massage the meat every day to ensure the cure is incontact with all the meat.
After 10 days - remove and rinse the meat. Soak in water overnight ( to reduce salt).
Prepare meat as a ham - string it into the ham shape tucking any bits inside.
Cook in a jam pot or large pan. Cover in water with a sliced onion and black pepper corns. Bring so boil and remove any scum and then low simmer for 20 - 30 mins a kg,
Score in diamonds shapes the fat or skin then paint in a mustard, honey or mustard brown sugar mix - you can stick cloves in too. Choose your own glaze.
Cook in hot oven for 10 mins and pooring over more glaze if you want.
Leave to cool overnight - slice with a machine and re-freeze into packs.
I think that is about it. Cheers Martin
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Mak :wave:
Wow - I will have to show this to my OH :yum:
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The OH has raised her head off the pillow and will soon be down stairs.
I have the ham slicer set up, fed all the stock - lit a fire outside and have beetroot and spuds cooking for the pigs and am on my third cup of coffee.
No pressure on her then to start on the ham. ;D
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fantastic, thank you so much. We have a pepsi drinks fridge, the kind you see in newsagents, so it shouldn't be too difficult for us to keep it cool for 10 days. I can't wait to try! My day is getting better and better :)
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Heh - make sure that you soak the hams in water after the cure period ends and before you cook ( otherwise the meat will be too salty).
Ham with calabrese ( ours) in pasta with blue cheese sause for super - soon I hope - I could eat for England ( well France actually).
Martin