Cordon Bleu Ham From the Solomon Islands

[Vernon Smith]

Please forgive my verbosity on the above subject if my enthusiasm goes over the top. I have been participating in the thread on "First Time Ham Cure-Cook" for over a year and having just tasted my second attempt I simply HAD TO start a new thread. In spite of that fact that I have been celebrating my success with more alcohol than is healthy, I hope I am still
lucid and trust someone will find this simple hybrid method useful. My thanks to Oddley, Saucisson, Paul Kribs, Tristar, et al. for the groundwork that put me on this track. BTW I did it without saltpetre, just salt and sugar. Here goes with the tutorial a la Smith! Ph.D. courses can be arranged upon receipt of written applications.

Curing Ham should not take longer than 4 days for joints of about 3 kg with bone. I used half a leg of 2.5 kg

1. Pump 10% joint wieght (excl bone) with Oddley's pumping brine recipe.
2. Dry cure outside with 20g/kg cure mix of 60% salt and 40% sugar.
3. Keep in fridge for 4 days turning every day.
4. Remove from cure, wash and hang to dry.
5. Cold smoke (medium intensity) for 4 hours.
6. Chill overnight in fridge.
7. Steam over hot water until internal temperature reaches 75 deg.
8. Turn off heat source and leave to cool down to 50 deg
9. Slice and enjoy hot or chill in fridge for 24 hours.

I steamed the ham on a trivet in a thermostatically controlled electric cooker/fryer. I set the temperature to 85 deg and waited for the probe thermometer to reach 75 deg then switched off. This took about 5 hours and another 2 hours to cool.

The result is definitely succulent, sweet HAM with just the right amount if salt for my palate.

I am so pleased with the result I have just put another 1/2 leg (with bone) into cure because I know this ham won't last very long.

The colour is not as pink as a commercial ham but a few grammes of KNO3 would fix the colour whenever I cure another one.

Notwithstanding the colour, the flavour is peerless.

Happy hamming,
Vernon

[Vernon Smith]

I got so excited, sploshed too, over my ham last night I forgot the pic.
Here it is:



All the best,
Vernon

[wheels]

Vernon
That looks superb. You wouldn't know from the colour that you didn't use Nitrate/Nitrite. That's HAM not pickled pork!!

Phil

[Spuddy]

Could be due to naturally occurring nitrate in the salt maybe. Depends on whether it's refined salt or not.

[Vernon Smith]

Good old Saxa free-pouring refined table salt Spuddy. I have made Pacific Sea Salt by evaporation but it's a real hassle. It seems to take forever in this climate of 90-something % humidity. Might give it another try for my next batch of bacon or sausage. BTW has anyone got a rough analysis of the composition of sea salt. I had one some time ago from the Maldon Sea Salt Co but it's long gone.
Cheers
Vernon

[saucisson]

Have a look here:

http://www.brittanysalt.com/information.htm

Most sea salt manufacturer's seem to boast about the absence of nitrates or phosphates

This one is even more fun:

http://saltaquarium.about.com/gi/dynami ... view/25/2/

Most sea salt manufacturer's seem to boast about the absence of nitrates or phosphates, due to public concerns over fertilisers I'd guess.

Dave

[Vernon Smith]

Just to prove my Cordon Bleu ham wasn't a fluke I am posting a photo of the other half leg that turned out perfectly too without nitrate. Nice chestnut brown rind isn't it! I always remove the rind and eat myself. It's just too good to give to anyone else.



I also grew the hibiscus. They are very nice in a ham sandwich and are always a conversation piece amongst the uninitiated who don't know that hibiscus flowers are nice to eat. Use them for making hibiscus tea too.
All the best,
Vernon

[saucisson]

There was a cheffy program on the other day where they had an old ham maker on to present his "dying" art. He had a fair few trays of different cures of different colours due to different spices/herbs combinations. All designed to ward off flies. I was about to rattle them off here but they're gone from my mind Anyway what he did say is you don't need saltpetre if you use a good sea salt, it just takes longer. I'm sure the presenters and audience didn't have a clue what he was on about but it made me think

Dave

[Hobbitfeet]

Can you remember the name of the program or which channel it was on?

[saucisson]

It was Market Kitchen on UKTVFood, with Matthew Fort presenting, one of last weeks episodes. I've contacted the producers and asked them if they would consider sending me a transcript of that section of the programme.

Dave

[Hobbitfeet]

I do hope you get it. It sounds as if it could be very useful!

[Vernon Smith]

Thanks to Saucisson I now have some KNO3. I slaughtered a pig this afternoon that has given me 120 kg dressed weight. Following a 24 hour chilling I will get some bacon and ham in cure and make some sausages.
I will let you all know if I find difference in the results I achieve using a nitrated cure compared with an un-nitrated cure.
Vernon

[Vernon Smith]

Just finished cooking half the Picnic Ham. The full shoulder was 10kg so I cut it in half ~5kg each. Using my composite inject/dry cure method with 500ppm KNO3 for 5 days and my normal smoking time yesterday I allowed the ham to rest in the fridge overnight before cooking today. I put 3 litres of water into the electric cooker and adjusted the thermostat until I got a steady 75 deg C and put the ham in. This was 10 deg lower than my earlier ham but I reasoned as follows:

1 The shoulder joint was from a much larger and older animal
2 It would therefore be much tougher, shoulder usually is
3 Longer cooking would be required to ensure tenderness
4 Lower temperature would preserve succulence during longer cooking

I have completely abandoned the idea of timing the cooking process, it is too hit-and-miss. I have come down firmly on the side of internal temperature with a probe thermometer. It took 9 hours for the ham to reach 72 deg at it's thickest part at which point I switched off the power and waited another 3 hours for it to cool down to 50 deg. I find that insulating the cooker all round with several tea towels greatly reduces the amount of electricity consumed. The whole cooking time barely consumed 2 units.

The results are outstanding. Moist, delicately-flavoured ham. Different to my earlier posting but different doesn't mean inferior. The colour, as expected, is a much deeper pink due to the 500ppm nitrate and all four of the above suppositions were 100% accurate. It is absolutely perfect ham, in my opinion far better than anything I might buy. Pic below.



I have found in the past 18 months of R & D with making Bacon, Ham, Sausage etc. that there is a lot of hype that I thought daunting initially but having chucked all that out of the window I have developed far simpler methods that I hope members will find useful.

All the best,
Vernon

[wheels]

Hi Vernon
Sure looks good - makes the mouth water!
I have also found that working on internal temperature of the meat is the best way to cook ham, and most other meat for that matter.
Can you tell us more about your 'combined' curing method?
The reasoning behind it?
Do you think it adds anything that a standard 'pump' then brine doesn't?
How do you calculate the PPM given two curing methods or do you just use saltpetre in one of them?

Please don't think I am questioning your methods - I just want to fully understand them - given the fridge space a ham in brine takes up this may be use to many of us - vac packed the ham would take up a lot less space in my fridge meaning I could make more!

Phil

[Vernon Smith]

Phil,
Please question anything you wish. I know dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists might have apoplexy when reading my methods, too bad!!. My aim is to get the best possible results "efficiently" at home and cut out all the hype. Anyway, here are the answers you seek!

I formulated my composite curing method to save time, fridge space and to control the saltiness. I use a 10 ml medical hypodermic for the injecting. It takes a bit of time but it is better that a commercial brine pump because it makes much smaller holes so the brine doesn't leak out.

Injecting ~10 ml per shot (especially round the bone) my 5 kilo shoulder joint with 30% deducted for bone (3.5kg meat) took 35 shots but I don't mind that little extra effort. Using a reduced amount of 2% instead of 3% dry cure for for the outside I applied 70g then wrapped the ham in a poly bag. I don't vacuum pack either. Waste of time and would probably draw out some of the injected brine. My composite cure provides absolute control over the brine content of the ham whereas immersion for several weeks does not. Immersion is wasteful too, although neither brown sugar nor salt are expensive.

The injected brine mixture is:
250ml water
36g salt
36g brown sugar
1g KNO3
========
323g total. Injected onto 3.5 kg meat this equates to ~1g KNO3

The dry cure is:
120gt salt
80g brown sugar
3g KNO3
========
203g total. Applied at 2% (70g in total) this equates to ~1g KNO3


I didn't bother to calculate exactly the up-take of the 3 brine ingredients because none of them would become totally exhausted. The ham would certainly take up more of the injected cure than the dry cure but that was not a factor in my methodology. Theoretically, if the ham plus all the brine and dry cure reached perfect equilibrium and 2g KNO3 was perfectly dispersed throughout the total of 3.893 kg I would expect a level of 514ppm but in reality I am confident the content would be much less in the finished cooked ham. I hope my arithmetic is clear. Bacteria will have converted quite a lot of the nitrate to gaseous oxides and cooking should reduce the level even further. It would be interesting if any Food Scientist reading this topic could give us some idea (with calcs) of the real amount of residual KNO3 under these circumstances.

I always calculate the KNO3 to make sure that I don't exceed 500ppm and I am sure I haven't.

I hope all the above helps.
All the best,
Vernon