Beef Hams
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beef
Obtain a prime young beef joint from your butcher.
Hang the beef for a prudent amount of time.
Rub the beef with coarse sugar, turning it every second day for six days.
Make and use the cure
Mix the coarse sea salt, common salt, saltpetre, coarse sugar, and old stale ale.
Rub this mixture into the beef for three weeks, turning it every second day for an additional two weeks.
Boil and skim the pickle, adding 20 percent more ingredients to replenish strength.
Dry, smoke and store
Dry the meat and coat it with a mixture of oatmeal and bran.
Hang the meat in fresh air for a week, changing its position regularly.
Smoke the meat for a month using oak logs, sawdust, and beech or birch chips.
Store the smoked meat in malt coops and charcoal for four months without disturbance.
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 moisture out of the beef and preserves the meat.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the meat and gives the cured flesh its characteristic colour.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the harshness of the salt and adds sweetness to the cure.
- Old stale ale
- Carries the cure into the meat and adds flavour to the pickle.
The step that matters
Boil and skim the pickle, replenishing its strength. The pickle must stay strong enough in salt and cure to preserve the meat. Boiling and skimming removes impurities that form on the surface, and adding fresh ingredients restores the strength that is lost as the brine is used.
“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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