How to cook ham
Products
Pork leg - 1.5 kilograms
Salt - 110 grams (5 tablespoons)
Water - 1 liter
Black pepper - 1 pinch
Cloves - 2 pieces
Dried hot peppers - 1 piece
Food preparation
1. Rinse the pork leg well with cold water, dry it, if there are veins - cut them off.
2. Prepare the brine. To do this, pour 1 liter of water into a saucepan, add 5 tablespoons of salt, pepper, cloves and put on fire. Boil.
3. Remove the pot of brine from the heat and refrigerate.
Stuffing and marinating ham
1. Take a 20 ml syringe, fill with chilled brine and syringe. You need to make about 25 injections from all sides, using half of the brine. There should be approximately the same distance between the injections.
2. Place the chopped meat in a deep container, pour the remaining, unused brine, press down with a load and put it in a cool place, refrigerator for three days.
3. Once every 24 hours, the meat must be turned over to the other side.
Boiling ham
1. After 3 days, remove the pork from the brine.
2. Place a piece of meat on the table and roll tightly. For fixation, you can use twine or a special stretch film.
3. Pour water into a deep saucepan, put on fire and heat to a temperature of 85 degrees.
4. When the water is heated to the required temperature, dip the ham into a pot of water. Reduce heat to lower the water temperature to 80 degrees on a cooking thermometer.
5. Cook for 3.5 hours. The temperature should not rise higher, as the meat will lose its appearance and the juiciness of the product.
6. At the end of the time, remove the ham from the pan, rinse with hot and then cold water.
7. Cool and refrigerate for 12 hours. Eating the ham immediately when it is still warm is not advisable, as it may seem too salty. After standing in a cool place for 12 hours, the juices and salt in the meat will disperse, and the ham will acquire a more delicate taste.
Fusofacts
- Ham is a piece of boneless meat that has been salted or smoked. As a result of cooking, the product has a preserved monolithic meat structure with an elastic consistency. As a rule, ham is used for cooking pork leg, sometimes the front, back shoulder blades, in rare cases, ribs and other parts. Traditionally, ham is made from pork, but chicken, turkey, and sometimes bear or venison are often used.- For home-made ham, pork leg or neck is most suitable. When choosing a ham, preference should be given to its lower part, since it has less cartilage, less fat and is easier to cut. The ham is cooked using fresh, chilled meat. If it was frozen, you cannot defrost it in the microwave or in hot water, because the ham will lose its taste, useful substances and lose its appearance. Before cooking the ham, the meat must be rinsed with water, dried with a napkin and thoroughly cleaned of veins and fat.
- For cooking, you can use different spices and mixtures of them. The most commonly used are allspice, black pepper, coriander, chopped bay leaves, cloves, dried herbs, a mixture of Italian herbs, various meat mixes, and cinnamon.
- In order for the ham to have a pungent taste, in addition to spices, it is recommended to grease the meat with mustard.
- After cooking the ham, the broth remains, it can be used when cooking soup or cook sauces based on it.
- During the preparation of the ham, brine injection technology is used. This procedure softens the muscle tissue and allows the meat to be salted evenly.
- Turning the meat when marinating is necessary so that the ham is evenly salted and retains a uniform shade of meat.
- Since it is quite problematic to judge the temperature of water when boiling ham by eye, it is recommended to use a cooking thermometer for the best result.