Last weekend I wanted to make some ham from scratch. Bought a large piece of pork and started the process.
Ingredients :
- Pork (shoulder or other as you want). In UK it is called gammon when ham is uncooked.
- Cooking twine
- Salt / Pepper / Water / Some meat Rub (or spices of your choice) / Cloves
- Smoker box for the BBQ
- Wood for the smoking part
How to make it :
Make a marinade with water, and all the spices. Poke the meat with cloves. I also decided to tenderise the meat with a “spikes” utensils.
This allows for the marinade to go through the whole of the ham.Leave in the marinade in the fridge for at least 12 hours or overnight. You need to make sure the piece of pork will stay all together, so it is a good idea to twine the whole piece. Bring the BBQ to 275 Fahrenheit or 135 Celsius, put the wood chips into water to soak. Put the wood in the smoker and in the BBQ so that it warms up and eventually starts smoking. Cook the ham in an aluminium tray for 2 hours or more. It is a form of slow cooking, so do not hesitate to leave it longer. Once cooked, leave to rest and cool down. Put into the fridge for a few hours. It is obviously possible to do this with an oven (minus the smoking).
Once the meat has cooled down, you can slice it thinly and use for your sandwiches or as a nice appetizer with a glass of wine. This was my first try, the final product was good but I was a little disappointed that the smoking had not gone all the way into the ham. The smoking process was very nice because the smell of the wood was very nice in our garden for the whole afternoon.
