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Bayonne Hams

Cured ham made by brining lean pork tenderloins with salt, then smoking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Bayonne Hams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the tenderloins lengthwise as whole as possible and trim them round.

  2. Rub the tenderloins with hot salt.

Brine

  1. Prepare brine by boiling 1 pound of salt in 2 quarts of water and let it cool.

  2. Place the tenderloins in a dish and cover completely with the brine.

  3. Let the meat soak in the brine for 14 days.

Wrap and smoke

  1. After brining, place the tenderloins in beef bungs and wrap tightly with twine.

  2. Smoke the wrapped tenderloins for 2 weeks.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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

Tenderloins
Form the main lean meat that becomes the cured ham.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during curing.

The step that matters

Let the brine cool before soaking the meat. Brine must be cooled before the tenderloins go in, because hot liquid would partly cook the surface and could uneven the cure, while cool brine penetrates the meat evenly.

“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.

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