Dry curing
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Easy peasy....buy raw shoulder or ham, kosher salt, fine and coarse ground pepper and 2T of borax. You will need a 3' x 3' wood box with lid.
Salt bottom of box, add ham, salt top of ham and all over meat. Put box in cool spot around 35° and box will leak so make provisions. Let set 2 months, meat will take salt it wants so you cant overdue this step.
Meat will grow molds that will need wire brushed and rinsed off. Drill a hole in shank and thread a coat hanger through. While meat still wet mix peppers and borax and rub vigorously into meat and pack shank well to keep skippers out.
Meat ready to hang in smokehouse if you want and low smoke for 7 days.
Let it set for 6 months or more.
To eat, soak meat in water for 24 hours to pull out salt then boil to 160°. I debone while ham still hot as its easier. Wrap meat tightly and refrigerate so meat tightens up for carving. Chunk bone in a pot of beans.
Done
Rooster
Salt bottom of box, add ham, salt top of ham and all over meat. Put box in cool spot around 35° and box will leak so make provisions. Let set 2 months, meat will take salt it wants so you cant overdue this step.
Meat will grow molds that will need wire brushed and rinsed off. Drill a hole in shank and thread a coat hanger through. While meat still wet mix peppers and borax and rub vigorously into meat and pack shank well to keep skippers out.
Meat ready to hang in smokehouse if you want and low smoke for 7 days.
Let it set for 6 months or more.
To eat, soak meat in water for 24 hours to pull out salt then boil to 160°. I debone while ham still hot as its easier. Wrap meat tightly and refrigerate so meat tightens up for carving. Chunk bone in a pot of beans.
Done
Rooster
If you want good info, this has been a great place for me to get info: https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forums/curing.3102/
No, most of the info is not how granddaddy did it. But there are things they did not have 100 years ago to make life easier and longer..
No, most of the info is not how granddaddy did it. But there are things they did not have 100 years ago to make life easier and longer..
I’ve dry cured fish, beef, pork. made Salami, Sopresotta, and other dried sausage. It’s not hard just takes time. You need stable temp and humidity, if doesn’t occur naturally around you it can be done in a refrigerator. I like using a wine fridge, it doesn’t get as cold. Some fish and dried thinner sausages can be done in days, larger cuts can take months, sometimes over a year if you want a good Proscuitto.
Everything cured goes by weight, you are looking at curing most meats down to around a 30% reduction in weight. Very rarely will I smoke and cure, unless it is like a hard salami, I prefer a Genoa type salami or sopresotta, which aren’t smoked. Once meat, or fish, is cured, it doesn’t need cooking..
Everything cured goes by weight, you are looking at curing most meats down to around a 30% reduction in weight. Very rarely will I smoke and cure, unless it is like a hard salami, I prefer a Genoa type salami or sopresotta, which aren’t smoked. Once meat, or fish, is cured, it doesn’t need cooking..
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Not all molds are bad, have you ever been in a real Italian basement? Salami hanging with a good covering of white mold. White mold is good.
The meat molds range from black to purple to white and many shades in between. All the mold comes off when scrubbing the hams, shoulders or middlin meat as thats just the way I learned from my Appy people years ago. The black molds have a tendency to go inward so I will cut that totally away just cause.
In regards to the Italian basement, I have lived with the yankees in Philly for over 30 years and can with Italians. Their ways are similar to ours but the foods are different but delicious. My family is in the restaurant business so I have had meats from the other side of the mediterranean (Arab), as well, as thats our theme and their food varies even more. The Moroccans have curative spices, as well as the Indians, that work well and are different yet again.
If your interested in food from different cultures, check out this link where a film crew and magazine followed us through Egypt. This trip got cut short because of Covid and we were actually on a ship near where one of the original outbreaks occurred in Luxor. This is a whole different world form my country appalachian raisins, I can tell you, but Im where God wants me cause I like to eat....lol
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What do you mean by ''followed us''? Are you the focus of the series?
It looks like a good show.
American Express has a magazine and a local Philadelphia magazine along with a marketing person set the event up as a human interest food piece. One of the partners was born there and layed out the travels and they basically recorded the whole thing.
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The restaurant's menu looks outstanding.
I've never heard of using borax. I have heard of Prague powder #2 which is a combination of sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite and is used for long term curing.
I will admit that I have been wanting to try making some cured sausage or ham, but concerned about temp / humidity, etc.
My great grandfather always used borax in the curing process along with black pepper and sack salt, which was non-iodized. I need to pick my 83 y/o cousins brain to get as much information as he remembers about the curing process and other stuff. He is the one that still raises his white corn, hand shucks each ear and removes any bad kernels, before he stone grinds it into cornmeal and grits.
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Borax is a salt, but it's use in curing is as a pesticide (boric acid ruins insects' stomachs and nervous systems). You want to remove it before eating meat cured using borax. When you age with salt and after some time remove the salt and replace it with honey, the honey also acts as a pesticide.
This book is my curing bible Amazon product ASIN 0393240053
Alas, I do not have space and facility for temp/humidity control. Will be re-working my extra pantry to add a mini fridge in the very near future.
Alas, I do not have space and facility for temp/humidity control. Will be re-working my extra pantry to add a mini fridge in the very near future.
We used to start killing in November but it needs to be colder when that happens. I never use refrigeration as I put the meat in my salt box in the garage when its cold out. I also dont worry about critters as the box has a lid. You dont need to have a fridge if you wait until February; It doesnt seem to stay constantly cold out until then these days, but I could be just misremembering.
I tried "sweets" on some hog cheeks as a flavor alternative when making "guancole". I had the cure on and put cheeks in a butcher's bag and thought the bag looked light over time but didnt think much about it. The normal molds never showed and after a year or so I noticed the bag was kinda empty. I ruled out critters and concluded microbes(bacteria)has fully enjoyed my pork cheeks. So no mo sweets on my cured meats no mo.
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On the Borax issue, that's what it's for is insect repellent, but theres not enough in the rub to hurt you. All the pepper, borax and molds get washed off before cooking. Note that I haven't used Borax whilst living in the north. Simply not enough bugs up here; I reckon they dont like the air.
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