Survival Skills, Garden Planning, Seed Saving, Food Preservation, Natural Health – Dozens of courses, 100+ workshops, and interactive Q&As. Now, this might sound like a bad thing but really it isn't. Above us, hanging on hand-turned wooden pegs, a dozen hams are suspended. Put a layer of curing mix on the tray to act as a bed for the ham. Add salty ham to an omelet with cheddar and vegetables for a quick breakfast or lunch. I present to you: mocetta. He was known far and wide for serving his style of Country Ham with the homemade from scratch southern biscuits his mother made at Rays Starlight Restaurant, in … And watch videos demonstrating recipe prep and cooking techniques. Country Hams are the quintessential dish of The South. “We used to say you used everything but the squeal,” laughs Uncle Billy. It was the social event of the season, and all the people who worked and lived on the farm turned out to help. Cover with cool water and let stand 24 hours at room temperature, changing the water 3 to 4 times. Rub the cleaned ham with the coarsely ground black pepper. Salt Dry Cured Local. When I ask him about it, he shrugs and kicks the ground with his boot. The men did the butchering, the women took care of the organs and scraps to make chitlins and sausage, and the children tried not to get in the way. “The salt is going to penetrate the meat quickly. Taste the ham after fifteen minutes. The door is heavy, thick and insulated. When the new hams are ready for smoking, Uncle Billy takes the older hams and stores them temporarily in the salt house. I found Uncle Billy behind the house wiring lights to one of the half-dozen outbuildings scattered around the place. Aging has got more to do with it than anything I do. Country hams are salt-cured (with or without nitrites) for one to three months. Three wooden tiers ring the smokehosue rafters. The day before he's ready to smoke, Uncle Billy goes into the woods and fells a hickory sapling as big around as your thigh and cuts it into one-foot lengths. Meat cools just like it cooks, from the outside in, he says, and the meat has to drop to about 40 degrees Fahrenheit next to the bone, a process that usually takes overnight. The Genuine Smithfield Ham is a world-famous country ham – aged, smoked, and dry cured with salt for 6-12 months. Replace the water every 2 hours to reduce bacteria growth. While most of those who cure ham at home go only with salt, but you can always experiment with a few more ingredients and decide what works best for you. That's why we want you to save money and trees by subscribing through our earth-friendly automatic renewal savings plan. The commercial boys wouldn't think of building this big a space for a few hams. Salt Cured Country Hams. I remember squash casserole, candied yams, butterbeans and snaps, and collards boiled hard and long into a wonderful deep green mush. When the humidity is high, it's ideal. If soaking the ham for more than 4 hours, make sure you change the water regularly. You can make cured ham yourself. The day has come! Wiping the ham with a clean paper towel soaked in vinegar will remove any remaining mold. Cooked Country … The top tier is for new meat. These carefully prepared hams make for the perfect gift or flavor-packed centerpiece for a special meal. This is venison ham. This is where fresh ham is rubbed with a dry mixture of salt and other ingredients. And don't forget: The meat will absorb the salt until it reaches equilibrium. When it's cold, he explains, the fat stays solid. Ham, generally, is the cured hind leg of a pig, and will comprise a cut somewhere between the shank (the ankle) and the rump. He covers the hams with a thin coat of the mixture, which toughens the skin to keep bugs out. When I went to visit him early this fall, the farm was bustling with activity. “Curing” means preserving, typically via salt, sugar, nitrates, and/or smoke. Two-year-old hams hang on the second tier, and 3-year-old hams are on the bottom, so that my Aunt Mildred, who stands about 5 foot 3 inches tall in her stocking feet, can retrieve them easily with the help of a long pole made just for that purpose. Dana & the Old Virginia Ham Shop Family * Please contact us within 7 days of receiving your shipment for return instructions. From day-one naturally Dry Cured Blue Ridge Mountain Country Ham was featured on the menu. Under six months a ham is still pork, the meat pale and pink, but after that a ham starts to become a ham with full flavor and red meat. I remember nearly transparent slices, rimmed with thin strips of fat, on a white dinner plate. Gather the ingredients. “They'll eat the damn meat up.”. If possible, you will want to desalt the ham before you cook it. You can also try white vinegar to help mask the saltiness. Cutting into a Traditionaly Cured Country Ham after 22 months! account? Salt cured hams are packed in salt/brine and left "out in the open" for 6 months or more. Should the skippers get in anyway, he'll put his hams in the freezer for a day and scrub the smokehouse until “it's as clean as a hospital.”, “The old generation had all these little things they did,” Uncle Billy says. Perfect Petite Ham for Easter, Christmas,Thanksgiving, New Year's, Every Day & Entertaining Ham. Mix the Curing Ingredients Mix 2 pounds (0.9 kg) of non-iodized salt and 1 pound (0.4 kg) of white … The first few days are critical until the salt gets to the bone. With the proper mix of sugar, spices, temperature and patience you can cure your own country ham. Like cheese, almost all have mold growing on them. “Once I get the fire going, I get it hot as hell,” he says. A day or two before you plan to serve the ham, place in a very large oval kettle, sawing off hock, if necessary, to fit ham in. I ate too much anyway. If Whole Ham is not available, Please consider the Virginia Gourmet Country Ham Slices. You could hang it on the back porch, and it would be fine all summer.”, In the Smokehouse: Smoking Ham to Enhance the Flavor, Salt may preserve a ham, but smoking makes it worth eating. The only thing left to do is wait and check them periodically for skippers. Photo by Holly A. Heyser. If your ham is too salty, dilution is a great way to remove some of the salty flavor. Step 1 Place kosher salt, brown sugar, pickling spice, and pink salt in a container large enough to hold the brine and the ham. He stresses that cold dampness is what you need. Taste the ham after you have boiled it for about ten minutes. If there are a few bluebird eggs in February, which is not uncommon in North Carolina, he'll bring several 100-pound blocks of ice into the salt house to keep the ham cold until the weather returns to normal. The mold is harmless but to the un-ham-educated, it looks like the meat is ruined. Desalt the ham before cooking. You can create your own brine or use a recipe. He brings the green hams into the salt house and lays them on the table. Uncured hams from butchers can be a tad pricey. A woman from up north was in front of me. But when you get right down to it, I'll put mine against theirs any time. Already a Member? The longer you soak it, the less salty it will be. This was strong stuff, I was told — an acquired, grown-up taste, like okra or good bourbon. This will take up to 5 hours depending on the meat's thickness. Head to the diet generator and enter the … For a home-cured ham, you will either smoke it or pack it with salt, sugar, and other flavors. The key to keeping good hams…is to keep your smokehouse locked.” He leads the way down a path in the yard, shooing tame ducks from underfoot, to where two small buildings back up to a soybean field. Uncle Billy opens the heavy latch on the door, and we step inside, enveloped by the darkness and the sharp smell of smoke and aging meat. If you've got space and room, things seem to work better. Cousin Duna's wedding was set for the following weekend, and the whole family of six girls, several husbands, and numerous grandchildren were working in the yard getting ready for it. It's a sign of good moisture and maturity. There was turkey with oyster dressing and cranberry salad, rice and gravy, and hot rolls for dipping and shoving. “I'll be 65 in February, and I plan to retire. * Virginia Country Ham is cured in salt. A salt-cured ham can be aged, and aging does more to make a ham a country ham than any other one thing. In the Salt House: Salt Curing and Preserving Ham We stop in front of the salt house, a cinderblock building with plaster walls and tables to one side. (It’s one of the ways we kept meat edible before refrigeration came around.) A modest man of 64 and a churchgoer, he would scoff at such praise — but he wouldn't deny it. So if you keep it dark, you'll keep it safe. The best way to discourage the insects is to keep the smokehouse clean and dark. Ideally, for a100 pounds of fresh ham, you would need 8 pounds of salt, 2 pounds of sugar, and 2 ounces of saltpeter. Their characteristic flavor is quite different from mild-cured commercial hams.When to cureHams should be placed in cure during December and January when production of country cured hams is dependent on natural conditions for refrigeration. “Three-year-old meat gets hard, red, and stringy,” he says. “So you want to know about hams,” he said, in all seriousness. If ham is very salty, salt crystals will be visible. Country hams are not generally smoked, but this is a matter of personal taste. A native of ham country (smoked hams from places like Gwaltney and Smithfield have made the area famous), I feel justified to state unequivocally and with all prejudices firmly in place — that my Uncle Billy makes the best country ham in the world. And like all things he cherishes from a simpler time (including his Model A pickup or his 1935 meat slicer), Uncle Billy's happy to tell you all about it — just as long as you're happy to listen. Sign in with your online account. As a result, a dry-cured ham will taste quite salty. Goodnight Brothers take the proven methods of their Appalachian Mountain forefathers and apply the technologies of the present to produce a consistent and high quality product. Country Ham History: Smithfield Olde World Cure Country Hams are smoked and dry salt cured like the Genuine Smithfield, but only aged for 3-6 months – a process used by the Indians and Colonial Virginia settlers. If it is still too salty, allow the vinegar or lemon juice to soak in for another ten to fifteen minutes. The ham will be blond when it comes in, with a clear white skin. Try chopping up the ham and cooking adding it to scalloped potatoes. If you wish, you can apply a salt free spice rub like my Meathead's Memphis Dust just before smoking. A week later I was at Cousin Duna's wedding reception, standing in line beside a table packed with food. I prefer … Removing Salt from a Ham 1. * In early March, Uncle Billy takes the hams from the salt house, fills a metal washtub with warm water and washes them “just like a baby.” He then mixes borax (found in the detergent section of your local grocer) and black pepper at a ratio of about a half can of pepper to a 32-ounce box of detergent, although he won't admit to exact measures. Folks who make liquor will tell you the same thing.” Although he has eaten the milder, 1-year-old hams his children seem to prefer, for Uncle Billy a ham doesn't reach its full potential until the third year. International Subscribers - Click Here “Well,” I offered, “it's a bit of an acquired taste.”. The few he has donated to his church's charity auctions have sold for as much as $75. He repeats the process on the fresh side where the clavicle blade sticks up through the meat. Doing so can result in tough, dried out, or unappetizing ham. You can soak a ham for up to 72 hours to remove the saltiness. A Little Brine. Cold-smoke the ham, if desired, for 12 hours. Method: When dry curing ham cover the hams completely with a layer of salt for 3 days. 3. The result is a more subtle, milder flavor that still retains our distinctive country-cure … The smoke is the important thing; that's why the smokehouse is well ventilated. The next day, at seven in the morning, he starts a small fire in the fire pit, using newspaper and the fruitwood kindling. Want to use it in a meal plan? Good smoking weather, says Uncle Billy, is like good duck-hunting weather. None of these kids are interested in doing it, so these will be the last of them.”. however you can find picnic shoulders at Walmart for 12-16 bucks, the have a red and White AVA sticker on them, I used these the first time I tried curing my own ham, and they came great and tasted the same, the meat is a tad tougher (at least it was to me) the second time i let it cure an extra day it was perfect, We stop in front of the salt house, a cinderblock building with plaster walls and tables to one side. Uncle Billy cured ham unlike anyone else, and you can learn how to make salt-cured ham like Uncle Billy. She picked up a ham biscuit and took a delicate bite. One of the original haute country hams, the Wigwam—reportedly a favorite of the late Jean-Louis Palladin—is cured for 12 months and hickory-smoked to make a pungent ham … Dry mixture of salt and other ingredients sign of good moisture and maturity snow. ” quite salty Uncle! 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