• Gardening
    • Vegetable Gardening
    • Mulch Gardening
    • Herbs
    • 2016 Vegetable Garden
    • 2015 Vegetable Garden
    • 2014 Vegetable Garden
    • 2013 vegetable garden
    • 2012 Vegetable Garden
    • 2011 Vegetable Garden
    • 2010 Vegetable Garden
  • Livestock
    • Cattle
    • Broiler Chickens
    • Laying Chickens
    • Butchering
    • Pigs
    • Sheep
    • Turkeys
    • Homestead Hog Butchering
  • Herbal
    • Natural Health and Beauty
  • Homestead Management
    • Homestead Management Printables
    • Homestead Management
    • SmartSteader (Homestead Binder App)
    • Email
    • Facebook
    • Pinterest
    • YouTube

Reformation Acres

Live Your Homestead Dream Today

  • Home
    • All About Reformation Acres
    • Subscribe
    • SmartSteader (Homestead Binder App)
    • Disclosure
    • Reader Questions
    • Affiliates
  • Blog
    • The Latest Posts
    • Farm Fresh Seasonal Recipes
  • Recommendations
    • My Books
    • Homesteading Essentials Shopping Guide
    • Recommended Resources
  • Recipes
    • Farm Fresh Seasonal Recipes
    • My Cookbooks
      • Cake Stand
      • Farmstead Pie
    • Food Preservation
    • Sourdough
    • Dairy
  • Homestead Shopping Guide
  • 0 items

Disclosure: I may receive monetary compensation or other types of remuneration for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial and/or link to any products or services from this blog. The good news is using these links doesn't cost you anything! You are greatly appreciated and a real blessing! Thank you ♥ Learn More...

in Farmstead Cookery· Food Preservation

Homemade Dry Cured Ham

After years of fruitless searching, we finally have found a winning ham recipe. It's so simple and absolutely perfect!It’s all well and good if one has learned to debone a fresh leg of pork, but of what profit is it if there isn’t a winning method to turn it into a beautiful, moist,  salty and smokey ham?

Such has been my dilemma for several years.  The wet-cured (brined) hams always came out tasting more like a simple smoked meat and nothing like ham as we know it. Thankfully, on the heels of this year’s bacon success comes another! This time in the form of a dry-cured boneless ham which was then smoked in oak wood and finished using cherry.  It was absolutely perfect!

If you’d like to make pork butter with me along with many other amazing prepared and cured pork recipes including prosciutto, capicola, bacon, guanciale, pate,  rillettes, and more join us December 8-10 for our Homestead Hog Butchering Workshop in Brinkhaven, Ohio!

Click here to get the recipe!

After years of fruitless searching, we finally have found a winning ham recipe. It's so simple and absolutely perfect!With the exception of the smoking, we used all the ingredients as suggested… even the saltpeter. Though the amount is small, I figured we would find a method that worked really well and nailed the flavor we were looking for. Then it’s time to start tweaking it in the future.

Next year, I intend to follow this recipe and use the saltpeter with half of the hams to see if it can be done just as well without. Sure we’ll lose the nice pink color, but I’m more concerned about what impact, if any, it has on the flavor.

But that is a worry for another year. In the meantime, I intend to enjoy our home-cured hams with Roasted Asparagus this spring and smothered in Cinnamon & Maple Fried Apples this fall!

Update: In our last batch of hams we tried the EQ method to cure them. It’s pretty simple and requires WAY less babysitting than the more traditional method. It also guarantees you can never over-salt your cures. This is the way we always cure our bacon now and we haven’t had to stand at the sink rinsing and testing, rinsing again and testing since. So why couldn’t it work with our ham too?

It was a smashing success!

Tips for Making Homemade Dry Cured Ham

If you decide to try the EQ method with this recipe, here’s how you do it:

  • Measure out all of the cure ingredients. (We didn’t use the saltpeter this time. It worked great leaving it out, still tasted perfect, but, as expected, the meat was more of a grey color.
  • Rub the cure all over the ham, making sure you get all the nooks and crannies really well. Reserve any excess.
  • Place the ham in a vacuum seal bag and dump in all that excess rub.
  • Seal ‘er up tightly.
  • Refrigerate the hams for a week or more before smoking them. You don’t even have to bother rinsing them!
  • Let them sit on a rack in the fridge for a day or so before smoking to allow the surface of the meat get sticky and take on the smoke better.
  • https://www.reformationacres.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=14160&action=edit

After years of fruitless searching, we finally have found a winning ham recipe. It's so simple and absolutely perfect!

Keep Reading

  • How to Estimate the Weight of a Live HogHow to Estimate the Weight of a Live Hog
  • Sourdough TortillasSourdough Tortillas
  • 25 Non-Toxic Cleaning Recipes for the Natural Homemaker25 Non-Toxic Cleaning Recipes for the Natural Homemaker
  • Whole Grain Harvest Apple Butter CakeWhole Grain Harvest Apple Butter Cake
  • How to Chit Peas for a Jumpstart in the GardenHow to Chit Peas for a Jumpstart in the Garden

Comments

Filed Under: Farmstead Cookery, Food Preservation

« Counting Chickens Before They Hatch
Holly’s Birth Story (A Pasture Birth) »

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Homestead Printables
Farmstead Soaps {All natural, cold process, herbal soaps & milk soaps that are handcrafted on our farm}
Homesteader's Shopping Guide

Copyright © 2021 · Privacy Policy • Disclosure

Copyright © 2021 · Market Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Learn more.