Ingle Hams
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Rub the hams well with salt, especially around the bone.
Place them in a cask and pour over the boiling brine.
Let the hams sit in the brine for four to five weeks.
Smoke
Hang them up in the smoke of a slow fire, checking daily.
Smoke the hams slowly for a week or more until they are a dark chestnut color.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and preserves the meat during curing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the meat keep its color and slows spoilage during the long cure.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness and a deeper, rounded flavor to the brine.
The step that matters
Let the hams sit in the brine for four to five weeks.. Salt must travel slowly from the surface into the thick meat, especially near the bone. Ending the cure early leaves the centre under-salted and more prone to spoilage.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.