Westphalia Hams
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pickle
Boil the common salt, coarse sea salt, saltpetre, and coarse sugar in the stale ale.
Allow the pickle to cool.
Cure and smoke
Rub the hams with the cooled pickle daily for a month, keeping them in the pickle.
Smoke the hams with horse litter.
Dry
Hang the hams up to dry.
Rub the hams with common salt before pickling.
Let the hams drain on a board for one day and night.
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
- Common salt
- Draws out moisture and preserves the meat during curing.
- Saltpetre
- Acts as a curing agent that helps preserve the meat and set its colour.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the harshness of the salt and adds mild sweetness.
- Stale ale
- Serves as the liquid base that carries the salts and sugar into the pickle.
The step that matters
Rubbing the hams daily while they stay in the pickle. Salt and curing agents penetrate meat slowly, so regular rubbing and keeping the hams submerged in pickle helps the cure reach evenly through the meat and reduces 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.
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