How to Cook an Old Fashioned Sugar Cured Ham

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How to common salt cure ham at home has been on my homesteading bucket listing for a few years now. Being able to preserve food with quondam-fashioned techniques, like salt curing pork, is a skill I find as fascinating every bit I practise yummy. Bring me the salary! And ham!

When Lee from Tennessee Homestead offered to teach me and yous how to salt cure a ham I got all kinds of excited. Lee, teach away!

What is Salt Curing?

Salt curing ham is an age-old tradition on our homestead.  Nosotros use a dry rub cure to make the best-tasting hams possible.  The table salt/sugar mix adds color and flavor to the meat.  Additionally, some of our hams will also go into the smoker.  But, today I will discuss with you the commencement role of the process, how to cure pork with a table salt dry rub.

Before reliable refrigeration, people would common salt cure meat the sometime fashioned manner because information technology was the best manner to preserve pork.  Curing and smoking pulls the wet from the ham to get in rubber to store at room temperature.  Nosotros don't cure for this purpose anymore, merely rather to give the ham a great flavor and color.

Where can I buy a fresh ham to cure?

If yous don't take a fresh ham from your own hog you can find fresh ham at a meat market or packing house.  Remember the ham y'all buy at the grocery has already been cured and/or smoked.  A fresh ham is exactly that, a ham fresh from the hog.

You tin can also enquire around in rural areas to see if you can find someone raising their own hogs. Many times families will enhance actress hogs to sell in order to kickoff the price of raising them.

Is Table salt Curing the Aforementioned as Dry Curing a Ham?

Yep, salt curing is simply another term for dry curing. This is a process of coating the meat with a salt cure rub which draws out the wet. This method reduces the weight of the ham anywhere from 18-25% which results in a more concentrated ham flavour. Many people prefer dry curing as opposed to injecting or immersing the ham with a curing solution. Once the ham is cured, it tin be smoked, cooked or frozen for afterward cooking. Because dry out hams are typically saltier than other products, they benefit from soaking in water for ane-12 hours (in the fridge) earlier cooking.

Supplies Needed for Dry out Curing a Ham

• Fresh Ham
• Curing mix – you must use a curing salt to brand this mix, not regular salt. (Salt used to cure meat has to be non-iodized.  If you use iodized salt it volition make the meat have a metallic flavor.)
• Plastic tray – to utilize during the curing process. (Do not use metal)
• Sharp knife to cut in around joints
• Fridge (preferably an sometime refrigerator that can be sacrificed to the salt curing process. The salt will ruin the metallic parts inside of the unit including the gills that disperse the cool air.)
• The Joy of Smoking and Salt Curing The Complete Guide to Smoking and Curing Meat, Fish, Game, and More (optional)

Bootleg Common salt Curing Mix

This dry out rub mix recipe has been in my family and handed down for generations. Information technology's a simple combination of four ingredients.

Does anyone else get light-headed over these kinds of things? I may exist a family recipe aficionado, it doesn't matter from whose family either. I know those recipes that go handed down are because they're simply that good. ~Melissa

• ii cups Curing Salt
• 1 Tbs Cherry pepper
• ane Tbs Black pepper
• 1 loving cup Chocolate-brown sugar

Most fresh hams will demand a minimum of a triple batch, the recipe can exist scaled up or downward as needed, depending on size of the ham.

How to Salt Cure Ham at Dwelling

• For one ham offset with vi-8 cups of mix.
• The temperature will need to exist betwixt 36 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

• Have a fresh ham with skin on, wash off in water and pat dry out.
• Put a layer of curing mix on the tray to act as a bed for the ham. This bed of curing mix should be ¼" – ½" deep.
• Place the ham on top of the layer of mix.
• At each joint, cutting slits down to the bone. These slits are needed considering you have to pack extra table salt around the joint and then the fluid volition draw out.  Otherwise, you could spoil the ham.  There are two joints, the H-os (hip) and the hock.
• Pack the slits you made at the joints with the curing mix.
• Rub and cover the rest of the ham with the curing mix.
• Get out the tray in a cool place (such equally a refrigerator or a cooler packed with ice) for 18 days at 36-xl degrees. If using a libation, be sure to bank check your ice daily and replenish it as needed.
• After 18 days cheque the ham.
• If you are going to put this ham in the smoker information technology has to exist firm to the touch. If not house to the touch on it is not ready to come out of the curing mix. (If information technology is not firm it is because there is still as well much fluid left in the ham.)
• If ham is ready to be smoked, thoroughly rinse off the common salt and pat dry before smoking.
• If yous are freezing then firmness does not affair. You lot tin go along to the side by side step.
• If freezing, slice the ham and freeze or freeze whole.
• If ready to eat, you lot can bake the whole ham. Alternatively, you lot can slice the ham, soak the ham slices in common cold water for upwards to an hr, then cook. Or, simmer the ham slice in a little h2o in the frying pan and then remove the water and keep cooking.

Table salt Cured Ham: Onetime-Fashioned Preserving

Common salt cured ham has been around for centuries as an erstwhile-fashioned preservation method. It's simple to cure your own ham at dwelling with this easy recipe.

Prep Time 10 mins

Cook Time 18 d

Grade Breakfast, Dinner, Dejeuner

Cuisine American

Servings 1 ham

Calories 69.7 kcal

• half-dozen cups Curing Salt
• 3 Tbs Red pepper
• 3 Tbs Blackness pepper
• iii cup Dark-brown carbohydrate
• 1 Fresh Ham

• Mix common salt, ruby pepper, black pepper and brownish saccharide in a basin and set aside, this is your curing mix.

• With a ham that's between 36 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit, rinse in cold water and pat dry out.

• Put a layer of curing mix ¼" – ½" deep on a tray to act as a bed for the ham.

• Place the ham on pinnacle of the layer of curing mix.

• At the H-bone (hip) and the hock joints, cut slits downward to the os then pack with as much of the salt mixture as possible.

• Rub and encompass the residual of the ham with the curing mix.

• Leave the tray in a cool place (such as a refrigerator or a cooler packed with ice) for 18 days at 36-40 degrees.

• Cure for 18 days (or more – see recipe notes).

• Once the ham is cured, rinse well with cool water then fume information technology, cook it or freeze it for subsequently (see recipe notes for cooking tips).

• If using a cooler, be sure to check your ice daily and replenish it equally needed.
• If you are going to fume your ham, information technology has to be house to the touch. If information technology's not business firm to the bear upon, continue curing and checking information technology daily.
• If ham is ready to exist smoked, thoroughly rinse off the table salt and pat dry out before smoking.
• If you are freezing then firmness does not affair. Piece the ham and freeze or freeze whole.
• When ready to eat, you can broil the whole ham.
• If you'd like to serve the ham in slices, we recommend soaking the slices in cold water for an hour upward to 12 hours in the refrigerator. Then melt up in a frying pan. (You lot tin can also simmer the ham slice in a petty water in the frying pan, remove the water, then continue cooking.

Serving: 1 oz. Calories: 69.7 kcal Protein: v.2 g Fatty: v.three m Saturated Fat: 1.nine g Cholesterol: 15.nine mg Sodium: 364 mg

Keyword Cured Ham, Dry out Cured Ham, Table salt Cured Ham

Let united states know how it was!

Here on the homestead, cured hams are just one of the products we make from our own hogs. Other products include lard, bacon, ham, ham hocks, sausage and souse meat.  If you are unable to raise your own hog many local custom slaughterhouses can help you find a producer yous tin can purchase a hog from so you also can have your own fresh pork and enjoy the process of curing your own meat.

Lee is a writer/blogger who is also a self-reliance promoter.  They call her chicken "Mama" at dwelling house where she considers herself an expert pitchfork operator. For more self-reliance and homesteading tips from Lee go to Tennessee-Homestead.com

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