Pork is a special type of meat. When cooked correctly, it turns out tender and flavorful. Pork ham is the most delicious and juicy part of the carcass. Pork hind legs are often used because they are meatier. There are many ways to prepare ham at home from pork: baking, salting, smoking.
Baking in the oven
If the meat product is fresh, it should be washed and dried with paper towels. Salted ham is necessary pre-soak and then rinse well under running water. To prepare, you will need the following ingredients (take the amount of components by eye, depending on the size of the pork leg): ham, salt, garlic, spice mixture, lemon juice, black pepper.
To ensure that the finished product is tender and juicy, the meat ingredient must be marinated for at least 12 hours. Dry meat is good coat with honey and lemon juice, sprinkle with herbs. Use a knife to make deep cuts over the entire area. Place a slice of garlic in each cut. The more it is, the more aromatic and tasty the finished dish will be. Garlic plates should be insert deeper, because if they are on the surface, after baking the meat around will acquire a greenish tint. Place the ham on a plate and refrigerate for 12 hours.
If you use a sleeve when baking, you should make small holes in it and place the meat in a cold oven. If you put it in a hot oven, the sleeve will melt.
If you bake in food foil, you need to place the pan into a preheated oven. 25-30 minutes before the end of cooking, open the top layer of foil to create an appetizing crust.
There is another, more interesting way of roasting pork, for which you should marinate for a day meat ingredient. Coat the ham on all sides with salt and ground pepper. Then cover with onion rings, then wrap in cling film. Place in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Before putting the meat in the oven, stuff it with carrots and thin strips of lard.
Cover the baking dish well with foil and place in the oven. 20-25 minutes before the end of cooking, remove the foil and coat the meat with sour lemon-apple juice or Ugorka plum jam. At the end of baking, allow the meat to cool and soak. You can’t cut it right away, otherwise the juice will leak out and the ham will become dry.
Salting pork
How to salt a ham at home is up to everyone to choose for themselves. There are several methods of salting: dry, with brine or combined.
Dry method
Pour a layer of salt onto the bottom of a wooden barrel or vat and lay out the hams, having previously coated them with a mixture prepared in the following proportions: for 1 kg of salt - 0.2 kg of sugar and 50 g of saltpeter. In this case, saltpeter acts as a color preservative, so you can safely add it. With the help of saltpeter, the meat will remain red. After the meat is placed, the free space should be filled with salt. After three days, you need to put the lower hams up and the upper ones down. The duration of dry salting is three weeks. After this, you can take out the meat, remove the salt from it and hang it in a cool place.
Salting in brine
Place the meat in a barrel in layers, between which sprinkle spices (ground black pepper and bay leaf). Prepare the brine. For 10-12 liters of water you will need:
- 1 kg salt;
- 0.3−0.4 kg sugar;
- 0.06 g of saltpeter.
Add dry ingredients to a container with water and put on fire. Boil for 5-10 minutes, then remove from heat and cool. Pour the cooled solution into the barrel with the hams and place the press on top. The duration of salting in this way is 1-2 months. At the end of the process, remove the hams and hang them in a cool place to dry.
Combined method
To begin with, the meat ingredient should be salted using the dry method. You can add garlic if you wish. Salting time is 14-21 days. The brine can be made not very salty. This is due to the fact that during dry salting the ham will absorb a sufficient amount of salt. For 10 liters of water you need:
- 500 g salt;
- 150 g sugar;
- 20 g of saltpeter.
The meat is taken out of the barrel and cleaned of salt. The container is washed well, then the hams are placed in it. Fill with cooled brine and leave for 21-28 days. After the salting time has passed, the meat should be hung in a cool place.
Smoked pork hams
Homemade smoked pork ham is much tastier than store-bought. Like any other meat, pork ham must be salted before smoking. This can be done in any of the known ways. There are two types of smoking: hot and cold.
Hot way
After salting, the ham should be soaked and dried well. For the hot smoking process you will need: a smokehouse, firewood and fruit tree chips.
Place wood chips on the bottom of the smokehouse, then hang the meat. Close the smokehouse and light the fire. The smoking process should last at least 12 hours over moderate heat, at a temperature of no more than 60 ⁰ C. If the fire is too strong, raw sawdust should be added. The finished product has a beautiful and appetizing dark brown crust. At the end of the smoking process, ventilate the ham for 6-8 hours, and then you can try it.
Cold method
To ensure that the ham can be stored for a long time, a cold smoking method is used. This cooking method is longer and more laborious than hot cooking, but it produces an appetizing and very aromatic ham that can be stored for several months.
After salting, the ham is soaked for at least five hours. Then the meat is dried and ventilated for 7-8 hours.
The cold smoking period lasts from three to seven days. The processing process occurs with cold and thick smoke. The temperature should be no more than 25 ⁰ C.
Smoking must be continuous. This is especially important in the first 12-15 hours. At the end of the process, the meat should be ripe. To do this, it must be wrapped in a piece of gauze and hung in a dry, cold and well-ventilated area for 14 days. Only after all the manipulations is the meat ready for consumption.
Features of home smoking
- The smoking process is best carried out in dry, windless weather.
- Wood chips and firewood made from oak, fruit trees or alder should be used.
- At the end of the smoking process, you can add juniper sprigs if desired. They will give the meat an unusual and piquant taste.
- The finished product must be ventilated to remove the pungent smell of smoke.
Before serving, it is better to put the ham in the refrigerator for several hours. This will give the meat the taste of a real homemade delicacy.
Storing smoked meat
Cold smoked ham can be stored for 6 months at a temperature of 2 to 5 degrees. The room should be dark, dry and well ventilated.
Hot smoked meat is stored for much less time - no more than two months in the refrigerator. It is better to wrap the ham with thick parchment. It is not recommended to use cling film for these purposes.
Excess meat can be stored in the freezer for a year. The product should first be wrapped in foil and then placed in a bag.
Boiled ham
Pork meat can also be boiled. Rinse the ham, then place it in a pan of cold water and place on the stove. Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Cook the meat over low heat until done. The process takes approximately 3−4 hours. Add allspice or black pepper, onion and carrots to the broth. Onions make the meat juicy, and carrots give it a sweetish taste. 20-30 minutes before the end of cooking, add salt and bay leaf. Do not add salt at the beginning of cooking, otherwise the meat will be tough.
The meat should cool down along with the broth. You should not take the ham out early so that it does not become dry. Must be stored in the refrigerator.
Some people like to cook boiled smoked ham. The cooking process consists of two parts: first, the salted meat is boiled and then smoked. The salted ham is soaked in water for at least an hour. Then put it in boiling water, adding a bay leaf. The product is boiled for two hours, after which it is removed from the broth, dried and proceeds to the smoking process. In this case, the hot method is suitable. Duration 8 hours at a temperature of 60 ⁰ C.
So, preparing a ham at home from pork is a very real task. It is important to decide on the cooking method so that the finished product is to the taste of everyone in the household.
Meat dishes are always the main thing on the holiday table. Smoked pork ham is one of the popular delicacies among smoked meat lovers. The delicate taste and pleasant smoky aroma leave no one indifferent, especially if this dish is prepared at home from natural products.
Composition, calorie content and benefits of smoked pork ham
Smoked ham is a very satisfying dish. It is consumed as an independent snack, for example, with horseradish or mustard. They are also used to prepare all kinds of dishes - soups, broths, appetizers, casseroles, salads, pizza.
Cooking meat by smoking preserves almost all the beneficial substances in it. The ham contains such useful minerals as: iodine, iron, fluorine, calcium, magnesium. As well as a large amount of vitamins PP and B groups.
The product is well absorbed by the body, satisfies hunger for a long time, gives vitality and energy. But, like any smoked delicacies, you should not consume it in large quantities. This can lead to excess weight, gastrointestinal and cardiovascular problems.
The calorie content of ham depends on how it is prepared. A boiled-smoked product has less calories, since after the smoking process it is still boiled. With this treatment, the amount of fat is reduced.
100 g of boiled smoked ham contains:
- Protein – 14.0 g.
- Fat – 26.0 g.
- There are no carbohydrates.
- Calorie content is 306 kcal.
100 g of hot smoked ham contains:
- Belkov – 15 g.
- Fat – 50 g.
- There are no carbohydrates.
- Calorie content 510 kcal.
How to salt a ham for smoking
As with any meat, the process of smoking a ham begins with marinating, or rather, salting. For dishes, it is recommended to use enamel containers or barrels made of natural wood. There are several types of salting meat that are suitable for both hot and cold smoking.
Salting ham with dry spices
Prepare the mixture for salting according to the following proportions: 1 kg of coarse salt, 150 g of sugar, 20 g of saltpeter (food grade), ground black pepper.
Place a small layer of salt on the bottom of the salting dish. Place the meat on top, generously rubbed with the curing mixture. Place the hams skin side down. Also fill the gaps between the legs with the mixture.
Meat should be salted at a temperature from + 2⁰С to +5⁰С for at least 2 weeks. After marinating, remove the ham from the brine, soak in cold water for 5 hours and hang in a ventilated place to dry (8-12 hours).
Salting in brine
Prepare the brine: add 750 g of salt, 180 g of sugar, 20 g of saltpeter to 10 liters of water. Bring to a boil until all ingredients dissolve, let cool.
Place the hams, skin side down, in the prepared bowl, topping them with spices (bay leaf, garlic, allspice). Pour chilled and strained brine over them. The liquid should completely cover the meat.
Salt the meat for 4 weeks in a cool place. Afterwards, the hams are soaked and hung out to dry.
Mixed Ambassador
To begin with, the meat is salted with a dry salt mixture at the rate of: 50 g of sugar, 15 g of saltpeter per 1 kg of salt. If desired, you can add your favorite spices. Spices should remain in the dry marinade for 12-14 days.
Afterwards, the hams are poured with cold brine. For 10 liters of water take 500 g of salt, 50 g of food nitrate, 100 g of granulated sugar.
The meat will stay in the brine for another 2 weeks. It is then soaked, dried and smoked. Adding potassium nitrate will give a nice pink color.
Hot smoking pork ham
When the ham is soaked and dried, it can be hot smoked. For this you need a smokehouse, firewood, and fruit chips. The smokehouse must have appropriate dimensions, since the ham itself is quite large.
The bottom of the smokehouse is covered with wood chips. Then the hams are hung in the smokehouse. For convenience, you need to make a small incision near the bone and thread the twine into it.
The smokehouse is covered with a lid, placed on a lit fire and the process of hot smoking begins.
Meat should be hot smoked for at least 12 hours at a temperature of about 60⁰C. The fire should be moderate. If a strong fire occurs, you can add raw sawdust.
When finished, the product has a very beautiful and appetizing dark brown crust. After the process is completed, the meat must be ventilated for at least 8 hours, and only then can it be tasted. 
This type of dish involves boiling the ham before smoking. To do this, the meat is soaked for 1 hour after salting. Then you need to boil water, put the ham in it, add a couple of bay leaves and cook the meat for 2 hours over low heat. After that, remove the ham from the water, let it cool, dry it a little and smoke it hot at a temperature of 60⁰C for about 8 hours.
The meat product prepared in this way has soft, juicy flesh and the taste of ham.
Cold smoking pork ham
To keep meat for a long time, cold smoking is used. This is a long and painstaking process. But the end result is a fragrant and appetizing product that can be stored in a dry, cold room for several months. 
After salting, the meat is soaked for 5 hours in fresh water. It takes 7-8 hours to dry.
The meat is smoked for 3 to 7 days with cold thick smoke. The temperature in the smokehouse should be 22-25⁰С.
The process must be continuous, especially in the first 12 hours. After smoking, the meat must be allowed to mature. To do this, the ham is wrapped in a piece of gauze and hung in a dry, cool room with good ventilation for 2 weeks. And only then the product is ready for tasting.
Features of smoking at home
- It is better to start the process in dry and windless weather.
- Use wood chips and firewood from fruit trees, alder, and oak.
- At the end of smoking, you can add juniper branches, this will give the product a piquant and unusual taste.
- Be sure to ventilate food after smoking to remove the strong smell of smoke.
- Refrigerate the product before serving. After lying in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours, the meat will acquire the real taste of a homemade delicacy.
Storing smoked ham
In a room with a temperature of 2-5⁰C, cold smoked ham can be stored for up to six months. In this case, the room should be dry, well ventilated and dark. An attic or storage room is perfect.
Hot smoked products and boiled smoked ham have a much shorter shelf life. It can be stored in the refrigerator for no more than 2 months. In this case, it must be wrapped in thick parchment. It is better not to use cling film.
Vendanny - Nov 30th, 2015
Salted smoked hams are well preserved for a long time and although they are tasty, the meat turns out to be quite tough. Not everyone is happy with this. The way out of this situation was simply cooking smoked meat. Boiled hams turn out to be very tender because when the water boils, most of the salt is washed out of them, and the meat itself becomes softer.
Start cooking by taking the already smoked salted ham and placing it in a bowl of cold water. Soak it for one to three hours. The soaking time depends on the salinity of the original product.
While the ham is in the water, find the largest pan and fill it with water too. Place a thick stick or long rolling pin on the rim of the pan. Turn on the gas under the pan and wait for the water to boil.
Boiled hams must be seasoned with spices during cooking to make them aromatic. Place peppercorns, bay leaves and other seasonings to taste in the pan. If the meat being cooked is not very salty, then you must add salt to the water in which it will be cooked. Otherwise, the salt from the meat will go into the water and it may turn out tasteless.
Remove the ham from the basin where it was soaked and hang it on a rolling pin - do this using a thick cord. As a result of this manipulation, the thick part of the ham will end up near the bottom of the pan.
Cook the ham at an almost imperceptible boil - the water should be only 80-85 degrees. Calculate the cooking time of the ham - for each kilogram of it it will take 50 minutes of cooking.
When the cooking time is past halfway, lift the ham out of the water and tie the cord so that the thin part of the ham is out of the boiling water. The thin part of the product, where there is much less meat, will already be cooked by this time. Wait until all the cooking time has elapsed and remove the ham from the pan.
Place it on a large flat dish and cover with clean paper. This simple procedure will allow the ham to remain juicy.
This is exactly the method of cooking smoked meat that housewives use before Easter, when they prepare a holiday basket for going to church for services. Therefore, if you don’t know how to cook meat for Easter, then feel free to use this recipe.
To prepare smoked boiled ham, it is first salted, then soaked, then smoked, and only after smoking is boiled. This produces a tasty, soft and juicy pork ham. After salting, the ham is prepared for smoking. As mentioned earlier, only salted meat is smoked, and mainly cut for this from a pork carcass into hams, loin, brisket, ribs, and so on.
Soaking salted meat and hams. However, during the salting process, the meat is not salted evenly; more salt accumulates in the upper parts; in order to balance the degree of saltiness, soaking is used. Soak the meat in the same way as salted fish before drying.
Meat is soaked, including pork legs, in cold fresh water, the duration depends on the strength of the brine and the duration of salting. Lard and bacon are not soaked. Heavily salted hams take longer to soak. On average, soaking lasts 2-5 hours. Approximate soaking time can be calculated as follows. If you salted the meat using a mixed method, then take 3 minutes for each day. If salted dry, then 7-10 minutes per day. After soaking, the meat is washed with warm water, washing off any remaining salt. Then dry or ventilate.
Hanging hams by looping. To hang prepared hams and other products to dry and in the smoking chamber, they are looped, that is, loops of twine or rope are tied to them. This must be done correctly, so that the meat does not fall, breaking through the edge or twine, during smoking.
The ham is the heaviest part, so a slit is made on it with a sharp knife closer to the bone. Then the twine is threaded through it and secured with a loop. The loin and brisket are pierced and a cord is also threaded through; it is better to pierce the bacon in two or three places, depending on the severity.
Smoking hams. When the ham is hung, it is allowed to dry a little after soaking for 2-3 hours. And only after that they are placed in the smokehouse. If the ham is going to be smoked and boiled, then it is hot smoked for 10 hours at a temperature of 40-45 degrees. After smoking, the ham has a dry surface, yellowish-brown in color.
Then the ham is boiled. Pour water into a bucket or tall pan and bring it to a boil. Then place the ham in it, standing vertically with the leg up, so that it is completely covered with water, but during the first 30-40 minutes the leg should look out of the water.
If you immerse the entire ham in water, the meat at the leg will be overcooked and fall away from the bone. The boiling water should be barely noticeable. The duration of cooking a ham depends on its size, but if its weight is 5-6 kg, then it needs to be cooked for 3.5-4 hours, a 10 kg ham needs 8-9 hours, respectively.
You can check the readiness of smoked boiled ham as usual. . To do this, you need to pierce it in the thickest place and hold the knitting needles for 30-35 seconds. Then pull it out sharply and immediately touch it; if the knitting needle is evenly heated along its entire length, then the ham is ready. You can check the readiness of the ham with a special thermometer, which is inserted into the puncture and when it shows a temperature of 70 degrees, the ham is cooked.
After cooking, the ham is cooled and kept for several days, during which time it acquires the taste of ham.
Ingredients
- 1 kg coarse salt;
- 35 g sugar;
- 100 g chopped garlic;
- 40 g of saltpeter.
Cooking method
- Rub the front and back parts of the pork carcass with the curing mixture and place it in the barrel, skin side down, generously sprinkled with the mixture.
- Keep under pressure for 5-6 days so that the brine is released.
- Additionally, prepare a little more brine (10 liters of boiled water - 1.5 kg of salt) and periodically add it to the barrel so that the meat is completely covered with it. If each ham weighs more than 8 kg, it is necessary to keep them in brine for at least 6 weeks; if the weight of the hams is less, you can withstand less.
- On the eve of smoking, remove the meat from the barrel and soak in cold water for 2-2.5 hours.
- Then tie it with twine and hang it so that the hams do not touch each other, in a cool room (preferably in a draft) overnight so that the meat dries.
- Before smoking hams, they need to be wrapped in gauze, folded in two layers, to protect them from contamination. Smoking is carried out at a temperature of 45-60 °C for 12-24 hours.
Wood can be used as fuel for smoking:
- old apple trees;
- cherries;
- pears;
- apricots;
- dense tree species (oak, beech).
The top of the firewood must be covered with fine sawdust. To give the hams a pleasant aroma, you can put wormwood, juniper with berries, mint, caraway seeds and other herbs on top of the firewood..
The readiness of the hams is determined by piercing them with a fork to the bone: if the ham is ready, the fork will pass freely to the bone.
To prepare spread hams, use the same parts of the pork carcass (front or back), but without skin and fat. First you need to remove the bones, then cut the meat into pieces (holding one after another), stretch them into a chain and smoke them in this form. This method of preparing ham is popular, but unprofitable, because the cut meat is smoked on both sides, as a result of which it has to be trimmed a lot. In addition, such ham spoils faster.
- preparation time 1 month;
- number of servings 5.
Ingredients
- 1 kg of meat;
- 100 g salt;
- 3 g sugar;
- ground black pepper;
- bay leaf to taste.
For the brine:
- 1 liter of water;
- 130 g salt;
- 3 g sugar;
- spices to taste.
Cooking method
- Wash the ham, dry it and rub it with the curing mixture.
- Pour an even layer of the curing mixture 1 cm thick onto the bottom of the enamel pan, place the ham, cover with the curing mixture, cover with a lid, and put pressure on top. Leave for 10-12 days.
- To prepare the brine, add salt, sugar and spices to boiling water, bring to a boil, cook for 5 minutes, remove from heat and cool.
- Pour chilled brine over the ham and leave for 15-20 days.
- Every 3-5 days, the ham must be turned over and the brine mixed.
- Wash the salted ham and hang it in a cool, dark, dry room to dry for 3-5 days.
- After this, wrap it in 2-3 layers of gauze and smoke at a temperature of 20-25 ° C for 2-4 days.
- Hang the smoked ham in a cool, dry, ventilated area to dry for 14 days.
