We got the four back legs of the pigs back from the butcher last Friday. They were brined for a few weeks and then hung.
I got the butcher to half them. I put the lower leg into the freezer and I left out the four hams, as seen above, to cook. They weighted 25kgs uncooked weight. That is a lot of ham!
They were too big to fit into anything I had other than a old pot I had for making cheese.
I boiled each ham for four hours each.
Once boiled, I peeled off the rind, be boned and tied the ham.
I cut squares into the fat and added cloves. I used a mix of mustard and brown sugar as a glaze. They went into the oven at a high heat for 25mins.
Yummy! They tasted amazing!
Later when they cooled, we used a second hand food slicer to slice up the hams.
I divided these into 500g amounts and bagged them for the freezer.
Now I have lots in the freezer for the kids lunches and for quick meals.
Freezers are such a blessing :-)
Proper ham is the reason I can't be vegetarian! DELICIOUS
ReplyDeleteHaha .... seeing my pigs on the chopping block is one of the reasons I AM vegetarian.
ReplyDeleteSaying that ....my Lovely Hubby is most certainly NOT vegetarian and he loved the ham, pork, bacon and sausages we used to produce and can't wait to get back to doing it again.
YUM!
ReplyDeleteNow I'm starving, looks great and doesn't sound too complicated, will have a go with next years pork. I liked the look of your salami too, thanks for the info.
Also, your photo's are great and really clear.
ReplyDeleteAhhh thanks :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm happy to eat meat when it has lived and died well. And they did taste yummy.
It did make me realise that shop bought ham is so processed. It is not even the right shape or texture