Cooking a raw Red Wattle ham

[Mhirby]

Hi everyone,

I have dreaming about buying a whole raw bone-in ham for a few years now, and I finally ordered one from the Heritage foods website. It is a Red Wattle heritage breed ham,a nd it's showing up at my in-laws place in time for holiday festivities.

Now, I have to try to not mess it up! I was thinking of brining it overnight, then scoring the skin and roasting it very slowly (say at 240F or so) for a long time.

Anyone have any caveats or suggestions?

Thanks-

Mike

[budrichard]

Its basically like cooking a whole pig, brining is not needed and in fact I think detracts from the end product. I don't think you have to cook it looooong and sloooow as it should have sufficient fat to cook at 300F but at the end turn up the heat to get a nice crust on it. You simply can't hurt it!-Dick

[Mhirby]

Thanks for the feedback.

[Mhirby]

I just saw a recipe in a French cook book that suggests boiling for 30 minutes per pound in broth, and then scoring the skin and roasting for one hour at 350F.

Anyone have any experience with this method?

[Nathan Kurz]

I just saw a recipe in a French cook book that suggests boiling for 30 minutes per pound in broth, and then scoring the skin and roasting for one hour at 350F.

Anyone have any experience with this method?

←

I don't have experience with boiling, but I posted a while ago about preparing a whole fresh ham: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...dpost&p=1498945

While I'm sure there are other great ways to cook one, I've got one more in the freezer and am planning to do it just the way I did the first: delicious!

If you are planning to brine and the ham is purely raw and has not yet been brined, you'll need to brine it much longer than overnight. Probably around a week, unless you inject or otherwise speed up the process. Which is to say if you are aiming for Christmas, you may need to speed it up somehow.

The curing salts aren't necessary, but give the ham that distinctive 'ham' flavor and pink color. If you are not planning to use them, I'd definitely want some other seasoning or rub.

Our ham ended up with the inner portion uncured, and while that was tasty, the strong group preference was for the outer cured part.

Good luck!

(typo)

Edited December 20, 2007 by Nathan Kurz (log)

[rlibkind]

Mike,

Is this a ham that's been cured, but not cooked, or is it a fresh ham, a.k.a. fresh pork which has not been cured? If it's already cured, I don't see why brining would be necessary or desirable: you'd only be adding salt to something that already has plenty.

[Mhirby]

Hi guys, thanks for helping me out.

The ham is totally fresh, uncured, unsmoked, and apparently butchered to order (as I had to order 2 weeks before it could be shipped from Paradise Locker meats in Kansas).

The reason I've always wanted to roast a fresh ham is because when I was a kid, a friend's father had one he brought home from work that was deep, dark red, unsmoked, and had a meaty texture unlike any ham I've had before or since. I remember it tasting so rich and fantastic that I've been thinking about it for almost 20 years! Time to get the show on the road and try to make one myself.

So, thanks Nathan for your experience in curing the wild boar ham. I was hoping, however, to just prepare it as an uncured roast, in a effort to replicate this choldhood memory. I was thinking of brining it the way you would a roast chicken or turkey, not to cure, but just to seal in juiciness.

In case you guys haven't ordered pork from Heritagefoods.com before - the Slow Food commerce site - it was a very cool experience to be able to choose a fresh ham from so many different heritage breeds, and then be able to track it to a specific farm as well!

Cheers,

Mike

[dougal]

Hi guys, thanks for helping me out.

The ham is totally fresh, uncured, unsmoked, and apparently butchered to order (as I had to order 2 weeks before it could be shipped from Paradise Locker meats in Kansas).

The reason I've always wanted to roast a fresh ham is because when I was a kid, a friend's father had one he brought home from work that was deep, dark red, unsmoked, and had a meaty texture unlike any ham I've had before or since. I remember it tasting so rich and fantastic that I've been thinking about it for almost 20 years! Time to get the show on the road and try to make one myself.

So, thanks Nathan for your experience in curing the wild boar ham. I was hoping, however, to just prepare it as an uncured roast, in a effort to replicate this choldhood memory. I was thinking of brining it the way you would a roast chicken or turkey, not to cure, but just to seal in juiciness.

In case you guys haven't ordered pork from Heritagefoods.com before - the Slow Food commerce site - it was a very cool experience to be able to choose a fresh ham from so many different heritage breeds, and then be able to track it to a specific farm as well!

Cheers,

Mike

←

Mike - one or other of us is confused here.

The ham of childhood memory was "dark red".

Your whole leg of "uncured" pork isn't going to replicate the dark red, is it?

Hertagefoods.com say "Red Wattle meat tends to be a little darker than most other pork and is very tender. The variety boasts wonderful hams and a juicy and flavorful taste even though the meat is lean." (Its not a breed I've met in the UK.)

So, just roast it and it looks like you'll have "a little darker" roast leg of pork, lean but juicy and flavourful. Not deep, dark red "ham".

Hopefully it'll be absolutely wonderful roast pork -- but don't expect "ham"...

To make the thing into "ham" rather than "pork" it needs to be cured.

My impression (I haven't got that big/ambitious yet) is that brine curing a whole leg/ham needs more like a month than the week suggested above - unless you start injecting ("pumping") it. After brining, the ham would likely be "boiled" (gently poached would be a more accurate description), and then might be finished in the oven (probably with a glaze) to become a "roast ham". Which could well (with nitrite or nitrate in the cure) be a "deep, dark red".

There are of course other things people do with whole legs of pork, smoking them, even dry curing them for a couple of years, as in Parma...

The English language isn't terribly helpful, using the single word 'ham' to designate both the pig's raw back leg, and some of the very different products made therefrom.

As to roasting the leg as pork, there seems to be an agreement to disagree as to the merits of brining pork before roasting. (Another whole different game...)

However, my main point is that without getting into the stuff of the "Charcuterie" thread, you should have a splendid (darkish) roast leg of pork - but not a deep red ham.

Edited December 20, 2007 by dougal (log)

[Nathan Kurz]

you should have a splendid (darkish) roast leg of pork - but not a deep red ham.

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Ditto. Like dougal says, it's probably going to come out great whether brine, cure, or do nothing, but it's the nitric oxide (from the nitrates or nitrites) that gives the pink color. It also contributes to the distinctive 'ham' taste. But it's still going to come out tasty either way.

My impression (I haven't got that big/ambitious yet) is that brine curing a whole leg/ham needs more like a month than the week suggested above - unless you start injecting ("pumping") it.

No, a week is just about enough --- see the linked post. It probably would have been perfect if I'd started with a thawed ham. Realize that even if you are going to brine it with just salt, you'll probably want about this long too. With #1 cure, the time taken is not for the reaction with the meat, but just for the brine to penetrate all the way through the ham.

Tell us how it goes!

[Mhirby]

OK, so this thing is a leg of pork right now, and will probably not become a ham.

I think what I'm going to do is rub the meat down the night before with spices, then just roast the leg outright at around 300F until it reaches maybe 150F, then hit it with heat to crisp up the skin, and let it rest before serving.

Thanks for all of your help, and I'll let you know how it goes!

Cheers,

Mike