Home Cured Fresh Ham

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

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There are many reasons for brining your own fresh ham. One would be to have a more flavorful ham or so you can control the amount of salt. Though at the end of the day bragging rights is the main one.

Brining is not hard it just takes planning and with a fresh ham a large spot in your refrigerator. We use pink salt # 1 (curing salt) in ours and is an ingredient that's essential with any brining or curing process. You can purchase it from Amazon. A little goes a long way. A couple of notes about curing salts. They are naturally white but are dyed pink so you can tell the difference. You do not want to directly ingest curing salt, as it will make you extremely sick. We always recommend tasting your brining mixture before you add the pink salt to get the flavors just right and then add it. You will notice that when you purchase curing salt you will think that you are buying too much. Though remember once you have curing salt, you are on your way to curing so much more, including your own bacon. Which once you start curing your own bacon, you won't want store-bought bacon ever again.

Ingredients

Brine

1 5 gallon bucket

1 (7 - 8 lbs) fresh, bone-in fresh ham with skin on.

2 qt. water

2¼ cups Kosher salt

1 cup light brown sugar, packed

7 tsp. pink salt #1 (curing salt)

2 Tbsp. whole black peppercorns

3 star anise, whole

2 Tbsp. fennel seeds

2 Tbsp. caraway seeds

2 Tbsp. crushed red pepper

2 large carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks

2 large yellow onions, peeled and quartered

1 bunch dill, fresh

1 bunch tarragon

Crust

½ cup fresh sage, chopped

2 Tbsp. orange zest, finely grated

1 Tbsp. crushed red pepper

¼ cup Dijon mustard

Instructions

Brine

Bring the water to a boil. In the meantime, combine the salt, pink salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, star anise, fennel seeds, caraway seeds and red pepper flakes, in the 5 gallon bucket.

Add the boiling water to the salt mixture in the bucket and stir until salt and brown sugar has disolved. Add another 2 quarts of cool water to cool down the brine.

Score the skin of the ham in the cross hatch pattern, making each score about 1" apart. Make sure to cut into the fat but not into the flesh of the fresh ham.

Add the fresh ham to cooled brine. Add additional water if needed to cover the ham. Place a heavy plate of the ham, to keep it weighted down.

Place the bucket in the refrigerator and allow the fresh ham to cure for at least 2 days, 3 - 4 is even better. Rotating the fresh ham, halfway through the brining process.

Remove the brined fresh ham from the brine and discard the brine. Rinse out the bucket and then fill with fresh water and place the brined ham back in the bucket. Allow the ham to sit in the fresh water for 15 minutes to help remove some of the salt content. Depending on how much salt content you want, you can allow it sit even longer, possibly overnight.

Remove the ham from the fresh water and pat dry. At this point you can go ahead and roast your ham with the cooking instruction below.

Crust

Combine all of the ingredients in a small bowl and mix thoroughly.

Coat your brined ham with the mixture. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, 8 is even better.

Roating

Remove the ham from the refrigerator and allow to sit at room temperature for at least 2 hours. You want the whole ham to become an even temperature. This helps reduce certain areas to be overcooked and other undercooked.

Arrange a rack in the lower third of your oven and preheat to 500°.

Place the ham, shank bone up on the rack of a roasting pan.

Roast the ham until the skin turns a deep golden brown and starts to pull, about 20 minutes. Depending on your oven, you may need to rotate halfway through so you get an even browning.

Open the oven door and reduce the oven temperature to 325°. Carefully add one cup of water, splattering can occur.

Roast the ham for 1 hour, rotating the pan once.

Add 2 more cups of water to the pan and continue to roast the ham, rotating the pan every 45 minutes. On every rotation continue to add water, so there is a at least ¼" of water in the pan.

Roast the brined ham until the thickest part of the pan reads 140°, about 1½ hours.

If the skin does not crisp with in the last 30 minutes, in the last 5 minutes of cooking, increase the heat of the oven to 450°.

Remove the ham from the oven and transfer to a carving board. When we say carving board, you will need to a board with a large moat, to help catch the juices of the ham.

Allow the ham to rest for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Carve your beautiful ham and enjoy. Feel free to take the juices of your ham, that were release while resting and make a mustard pan sauce to serve with your ham.

While we encourage everyone to eat the crust with the ham, if you have any leftovers, store the crust seperate in an air tight container and finely chop to up in salads or anything where you need a salt crunch.