Friday, January 4, 2013

Happy New Year

Hoping everyone's had a fun and safe start to the new year and wishing you all the best for coming adventures!

The old and new year were celebrated with my home cured ham. It had been intended as a Christmas ham, but we had a range of illnesses and misfortunes in the last couple of weeks of the year so I decided to have it a New Year's Eve dinner.
It had been sitting in the fridge in a pure sugar brine and took it out a day before to dry a bit.
I had cured pork before, to make Kasseler, but used the commercial brining salt which contains all sorts of chemicals. This time I had found a method using only salt and a range of sugars and gave that a try. Even though I think I over salted it, the end result was still nice. Only a bit dry. But the flavour was nice and the rest will now make a lovely pea and ham soup!
Next up I will try to make a dry cured ham, as we love to have al fresco lunches with our own produce.





TTFN