Pressed & Smoked Ham - Making Cold Cuts at Home - Homemade Ham Loaf
Author: Whats4Chow
Recipe type: Cold Meats / Cold Cuts / Cold Smoking
Prep time:
Cook time:
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Today we're going to make a pressed ham, then cook it gently in water bath before drying and cold smoking it with the Smoke Daddy cold smoke generator.
Ingredients
- 1.4kg Relatively lean pork (shoulder or rump)
- 20g Non-iodated salt (or 40g for a stronger ham)
- 3g Potassium nitrate saltpetre)
- 2.5ml Ground white pepper
- 2.5ml Ground nutmeg
- 2.5ml Sugar
- 2.5ml Garlic powder
- 80ml Water
Instructions
- To prepare the meat cut it into cubes of around an inch in size. This is 1.4kg of relatively lean pork shoulder. I have separated it into 2 lots.... 1 kg and 400 grams.
- Run the 400g batch through your mincer using the fine mincing plate.
- Place all of the meat and mince in your food mixer bowl. Add the salt and saltpetre, then the sugar, garlic powder, white pepper and ground nutmeg. Pour in the water.
- Put the bowl on the mixer and using the kneading hooks, knead the meat continuously for 10 minutes. This liberates protein from the meat, causing it to start emulsifying. This action along with the salt and heat is what combines the meat into a homogenous block of meat.
- Once you've finished kneading the meat you will notice just how sticky it has become. Cover the bowl with cling-wrap and place this in your refrigerator for a full 48 hours to cure.
- Once the pork has cured, load the meat into the ham press. Put the pressing plate in place and secure the lid. Press the thermometer through the lid into the center of the pork.
- Place the pot in a water bath at 80c or 175f for about 2 hours until the internal temperature of the ham is 80c or 175f.
- To achieve this you can use an induction cooker with digital temperature control, or what I have heat is an electronic pressure cooker with temperature control.
- Once the internal temperature of the ham has reached 80c or 175f, remove the pot from the bath and remove the meat from the cylinder.
- And there it is, a beautifully firm pressed ham. This is ready to eat as is, and is absolutely amazing, but we're going to take it a step further.
- Place the ham on a clean dish cloth and dry all of the surface.
- Place the ham on a rack in a pan and allow this to air-dry for about 6 hours in your refrigerator.
- After the drying time, lift the rack up and balance it diagonally across the corners of the pan.
- Fire up the cold smoke generator and place the ham in the barbecue. Remember that we're cold smoking.... there is not heat applied and none of the burners are running.
- As far as smoking time goes, you can smoke from 90 minutes to 18 hours, depending on how strong you want the smoking flavor. I am running smoke for 90 minutes using a mild flavor cherry wood chip.
- Once smoking is complete, remove the ham from the smoker and package it whole or slice and package before refrigerating.
