Salted homemade pork ham - how to cook pork ham at home.

For this type of preparation, only meat from a healthy animal is suitable. If the pig was sick with something, then after slaughtering it, the meat will have to be boiled - it cannot be salted or smoked, since salt does not destroy microorganisms, but only delays their development.

Before salting, the hams should be kept in the cold for 1-2 days.

What to salt the meat in.

A new barrel or one after pickling cucumbers or cabbage is suitable for pickling, but the barrel cannot be used after fish or non-food products. Before using the barrel after vegetables, soak it, scald it with boiling water and ventilate it. This will eliminate the specific smell. We check whether the barrel is leaking: pour boiling water into it, close the hole in the lid and roll it from side to side; if there are cracks, steam will come out of them. The lid or circle should be made of wood, not plywood or chipboard; these materials delaminate and poison the brine with glue.

Preparing meat for salting.

We begin preparing the hams for salting. We cut off the hind limb from half the pork carcass and butcher it.First, we cut off the leg at the joint, remove the tail vertebrae, fatty parts on the outer and inner sides, and give the piece of ham an oval shape.

Salting meat.

We cut the prepared ham between the tibia bones, small and large, and thoroughly rub the mixture both in the cut and on all sides. Pour more mixture into the cut so that the meat does not spoil. We put the salted hams in an oak or beech barrel, which we will prepare in advance.

Pour a little pickling mixture into the bottom of a clean barrel, lay the hams horizontally, making sure that the skin is on the bottom, sprinkle each with salt and seasonings, close with a lid or a mug and place in a cold place (temperature 2-5°C). This temperature is considered optimal for salting; at a higher temperature, the meat can spoil, and at a lower temperature, it can be unevenly salted. After a few days, the brine should come out, then we put pressure on top of the circle.

Dry salting of meat lasts 2 weeks. After that, fill it with cold brine, cover it with a circle, and put pressure on top. The oppression is usually a large smooth stone, previously washed and scalded with boiling water. After 2-3 weeks the meat was salted.

The dry mixture for salting meat usually includes food-grade potassium or sodium nitrate. Saltpeter, which is used for fertilizers, should not be used under any circumstances. Saltpeter is not a preservative; with its help, meat only retains a beautiful pink tint, and without it it turns gray. If you don’t have saltpeter and nowhere to get it, and the color of the meat suits you, then you can do without it. Instead of saltpeter, you can use ascorbic acid; it also gives the meat a faint pinkish color, and besides, vitamin C is useful, unlike saltpeter.Ascorbic acid should be added to the brine at 0.5 g per 1 liter of water, and for dry salting - 0.5 g per 1 kg of meat. Sugar is also added to give the finished product a faint pink color.

We prepare a dry mixture for pickling from 1 kg of salt, 16 g of saltpeter, 50 g of sugar, you can also add crushed garlic, cinnamon or allspice.

For 5 kg of ham, take a large glass (250 ml) of the mixture.

We prepare the brine from 0.5 kg of salt, 100 g of sugar, 50 g of saltpeter, 10 liters of boiled water.

Cooking ham.

The meat is salted, but it is not completely cooked yet. If we want to cook boiled hams, then we boil the salted meat, and if they are dried or raw smoked, we smoke them in a smokehouse over smoke. The following tree species are suitable for smoking: oak, birch, ash, alder, beech. You cannot smoke over coniferous or birch bark wood.

Can you cook hams baked in dough, it will also be very tasty.

Smoked hams store well all winter, because smoke is a preservative, and boiled and baked in dough can be stored in a cold place for about a month. All home-cooked meat should be juicy with a pleasant ham flavor.

See also video: Prosciutto - Italian cured ham or ham.