Westphalia Ham
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Rub the ham with ½ pound of coarse sugar and let it sit for 12 hours.
Rub it again with 1 ounce of saltpetre and 1 pound of common salt.
Let it cure for 3 weeks, turning it every day.
Smoke and boil
Dry the ham in wood or turf smoke.
When boiling, add 1 pint of oak sawdust to the water.
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 sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the harshness of the salt during curing.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the cure set a stable pink colour and adds a characteristic cured flavour.
- Common salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and preserves it during the long cure.
- Oak sawdust
- Adds smoky aroma to the ham as it boils.
The step that matters
Turning the ham daily during the 3-week cure. Salt and saltpetre penetrate the meat slowly by diffusion. Turning the ham every day keeps the cure evenly in contact with all surfaces, so the meat cures uniformly rather than unevenly at the bottom.
“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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