Country Hams

Quick update.  We successfully cured our hams!
It was an easy process and the results were well worth the minimal effort.  Post on the process here.
We were very excited to cut into one-

Country hams (salt cured) are different from your regular hams at the store.  Also, ours were not smoked.  I would say country hams are more similar to prosciutto than they are to honey baked hams.  They are saltier and you eat small slices at a time.

Back home we usually would eat them for breakfast on a biscuit.  Jonathan would want to add some Red Eye Gravy  but I am not a fan.
My biscuit are square (but very hip) because I roll the dough into a rectangle and cut them with a pizza cutter.  This saves time and I don't have to re-roll my scraps (which can make the dough over worked and dry sometimes).

The meat can be eaten raw if you like but we prefer it cooked.  My great granddaddy would go into the smoke house and cut off raw pieces to eat on the way to the farm yard.  An energy snack I guess.  Another use I have found for the ham is diced in soup (that particular recipe had called for pancetta)

The hams can also be stored outside the frig at this point but we just leave them in because its the best place for them in our house.

Think that is it for now.

Oh yeah, garden season has started.  Planted Mesclun Greens/Lettuce and Bordeaux Spinach.  Let the fun begin-

Curing Hams

We are attempting to cure our own hams this winter.
Mainly for two reasons:

1. The place we send our pigs to de-bones the hams and smokes them, the hams are usually small and somewhat dry (granted they are not injected with solution like the store hams).
2. After Jonathan ate my parent's home cured country hams he fell in love.  You can't get anything like that around here that I know of.  Maybe something similar at a specialty store possibly but would be expensive.

So with my parent's counsel we are trying to cure our own.  I hope I wrote down the correct notes over the phone from my Dad.  At the time I was over due pregnant and more brain challenged than usual.

Here is what we did-

We started with one of our FRESH hams.  Not one that talks back, but one that has not been smoked or cured.  The ones at the store are usually smoked or cured to cut down on cooking time.  Our meat processing house gave us one full fresh ham back cut into the two standard pieces: the shank and the butt-

The Butt End is what it implies, the butt or buttocks of the pig.  The Shank is the part below the butt, so more like the pigs back thigh area.

Here is our Butt and Shank (the shank ham already has the rub on it).  They are about 8-10 lbs each.

Here is the recipe my Dad gave me.  I had to search around for Salt Petre (potassium nitrate) but was finally able to get it through the CVS pharmacy for around $5.  Its available online also.

2 cups brown sugar, 1 cup table salt, 3 teaspoon black pepper, 1 teaspoon salt petre-

Rub it on to about 1/8" thickness.  It also exfoliates your hands.

Then we wrapped them in butchers paper.  I was told not to use any waxy type paper so the meat can breath and drip out juices.  Now they just need to cure for around 30-40 days in temperatures between 32-40 degrees Fahrenheit.  The old timers would hang the hams in their smoke house.  We plan to do the same in our shed but temperatures have been really cold here this month.  Right now the hams are curing in our frig.  

If the temperature is below freezing then its not a big deal, the hams just won't cure due to being too cold.  Therefore you would have to allow for more curing days.  If temperature gets above 40 degrees though then the meat could spoil.

Crossing my salty fingers it works!  We will let you know.