Feliz Navidad!
I've been wanting to do a fresh ham for quite awhile now. I finally ordered some Cure #1 and gave it a shot. Step 1 was to get a fresh pork leg at the local Mexican grocery store. Please excuse the poor cell phone pics...
Step 2 - I made a curing brine of kosher salt, brown sugar, garlic cloves, peppercorns and a couple of bay leaves. I injected it into the pork (just finished that in the picture) and then put the whole thing with the rest of the brine in a 2.5 gallon ziploc bag (not pictured....), put that in an aluminum pot to keep it upright, and shoved it to the back of the refrigerator for two full weeks.
Step 3 - rinse and air dry the ham in the refrigerator overnight, and then smoked it at 275 over a combination of pecan and grape wood for about 6 hours. For some reason no pictures of this part, but I cooked it to an internal temp of 165. After an hour rest, I trimmed off a small piece just to make sure it wasn't poisonous. Then wrapped it in a few layers of plastic wrap, put it into a ziploc bag and left it in the refrigerator for six days. Here's what it looked like getting up to room temp today prior to reheating it.
Completely wrapped it in foil and reheated at 300 degrees in the oven for an hour. After that, I scored the surface and started glazing it with a honey mustard glaze (4 parts honey to 1 part each of butter, brown sugar, mustard). Left it unwrapped and returned to the oven at 425 degrees.
After a few rounds of glazing it every 15 minutes, it had reached an internal temp of 120 degrees. I turned off the oven and opened it to vent the heat, then left the ham in it for another 15 minutes followed by 15 minutes uncovered on the counter. Here's one large section removed and ready to slice:
Here's a picture of the bone section with the prior half removed:
Here it is being sliced. No plated shots due to my hunger and desire to eat Christmas dinner on paper plates for easy cleanup
It was a long but not very difficult process, and completely worth the time once I tasted it. The ham was phenomenal, just the right balance of sweet and salty. It was moist but didn't have any of the watery liquid in a commercial ham. Yet it was very tender, when I was slicing it some of the crust-like outer parts fell off (think ham burnt ends
). There was no need of a knife when eating it, the slices were fork tender. If you can get a pork leg, this is worth a shot! As a side note, I think that a pork picnic roast might sub pretty well for a pork leg.
Merry Christmas to you and yours!
I've been wanting to do a fresh ham for quite awhile now. I finally ordered some Cure #1 and gave it a shot. Step 1 was to get a fresh pork leg at the local Mexican grocery store. Please excuse the poor cell phone pics...
Step 2 - I made a curing brine of kosher salt, brown sugar, garlic cloves, peppercorns and a couple of bay leaves. I injected it into the pork (just finished that in the picture) and then put the whole thing with the rest of the brine in a 2.5 gallon ziploc bag (not pictured....), put that in an aluminum pot to keep it upright, and shoved it to the back of the refrigerator for two full weeks.
Step 3 - rinse and air dry the ham in the refrigerator overnight, and then smoked it at 275 over a combination of pecan and grape wood for about 6 hours. For some reason no pictures of this part, but I cooked it to an internal temp of 165. After an hour rest, I trimmed off a small piece just to make sure it wasn't poisonous. Then wrapped it in a few layers of plastic wrap, put it into a ziploc bag and left it in the refrigerator for six days. Here's what it looked like getting up to room temp today prior to reheating it.
Completely wrapped it in foil and reheated at 300 degrees in the oven for an hour. After that, I scored the surface and started glazing it with a honey mustard glaze (4 parts honey to 1 part each of butter, brown sugar, mustard). Left it unwrapped and returned to the oven at 425 degrees.
After a few rounds of glazing it every 15 minutes, it had reached an internal temp of 120 degrees. I turned off the oven and opened it to vent the heat, then left the ham in it for another 15 minutes followed by 15 minutes uncovered on the counter. Here's one large section removed and ready to slice:
Here's a picture of the bone section with the prior half removed:
Here it is being sliced. No plated shots due to my hunger and desire to eat Christmas dinner on paper plates for easy cleanup
It was a long but not very difficult process, and completely worth the time once I tasted it. The ham was phenomenal, just the right balance of sweet and salty. It was moist but didn't have any of the watery liquid in a commercial ham. Yet it was very tender, when I was slicing it some of the crust-like outer parts fell off (think ham burnt ends
). There was no need of a knife when eating it, the slices were fork tender. If you can get a pork leg, this is worth a shot! As a side note, I think that a pork picnic roast might sub pretty well for a pork leg.Merry Christmas to you and yours!
