Ham
Ingredients
Directions
Dry cure
Beat the salprunella fine and rub it into the hams. Let them sit for 24 hours.
Mix the coarse sea salt, common salt, saltpetre, and coarse sugar. Rub this mixture into the hams and let them sit for 2-3 days.
Brine
Make a strong brine with 2 gallons of water and ½ pound of brown sugar. Boil and cool it, then skim.
Submerge the hams in the brine, turning them every 2-3 days for 3 weeks.
Smoke and store
Hang the hams in a chimney and smoke them for 1-2 days using horse litter.
Let the hams hang for a week by the kitchen chimney, then take them down.
Store the hams in a dry place in a large box covered with bran.
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 meat and helps preserve it through the cure.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the meat keep its pink colour and adds to the preserving effect of the cure.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the brine.
- Coarse sugar
- Adds sweetness to the dry cure and softens the harshness of the salt.
The step that matters
Turning the hams in the brine. The hams must stay fully submerged and be turned regularly so the brine reaches every part evenly. Uneven contact lets parts spoil or cure unevenly over the three weeks.
“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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