Real Food Has Curves

Welcome to ham month on the blog. Don't worry: it won't be ham all the time. But all month, I'm going to be featuring snippets from our new book: HAM: AN OBSESSION WITH THE HINDQUARTER. Up top on this page sits the ham for today: a cured, braised one. And there to the right on the page sits the book itself. It's already available on amazon--and will be published in just a few weeks.

I can't wait until you see it! It's the first time I've written a book in first-person. All our other books are written as "we." This one's "I." It's my fractured, at-times hilarious take on how Bruce developed those 100 recipes, plus the story of how we raised our own pig, took it to slaughter, tried to cure one leg, failed, tried again, and learned more about ham than you can imagine, including tres chic European hams and down-home American country hams.

To quote from the introduction:

From that first fateful day when we started this project [you'll have to read about it--let's just say it involves the lethal combo of Eudora Welty and porn], Bruce and I have endured refrigerators full of ham leftovers, with hunks of pork being delivered by UPS every afternoon; I've been to northern Kentucky in the dead of freeze-butt winter; both of us have been to a ramshackle slaughterhouse in rural Massachusetts; and we have borne witness to an enormous toe-on pig leg in our back refrigerator, a swarm of maggots in a French charcuterie, and a group of chic, black-bedecked New Yorkers eating a quivering pile of ham in aspic.

So let's get our first sneak-peak recipe from the book: the way to make your own wet-cured ham.

As you may know, there are three ways to encounter the backside of a pig: fresh (that is, no cure--think of a big-ass pork roast), dry-cured, and wet-cured.

Bruce calls ham "the most Christian of all meats." If so, the wet-cured variety is the Pope of hams. Most of us American church-goers know about it by those spiral-sliced hams that make an appearance every time we celebrate the coming or going of the Messiah.

Here's how to do it on your own--and to braise it into gorgeous lusciousness. But be forewarned: this is a three-day recipe. But that just means you've got enough time to get it ready for Easter.

First, get a fresh, 10- to 12-pound, bone-in ham with the rind (or skin) still on it. You'll probably need to order it. Or you might find it at the butcher counter of a high-end supermarket. You're not going to do anything with it just yet. I'm just warning you you need one.

Stir a 2-pound box of kosher salt (yes, you read that right) into 12 cups (3 quarts) of apple cider in a huge pot, the biggest you've got. Add 4 cups water (1 quart), 1 1/2 cups honey, 1 cup packed dark brown sugar, 1/4 cup molasses, 2 tablespoons crushed allspice berries, 2 tablespoons crushed black peppercorns, 1/2 tablespoon whole cloves, and 2 peeled garlic cloves. Bring the whole mess to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring all the time until the sugar and honey dissolve, then occasionally to make sure neither falls out of suspension and burns on the bottom of the pot.

Turn off the heat and let the brine cool to room temperature, about 3 hours. See: I told you it was going to be "one of those" recipes.

Now you have to check the marinade for salt. Yes, even after a 2-pound box. Here's why: you've got to have a great enough concentration of salt that when you put the ham in the pot, you'll induce an osmatic pressure differential. (Didn't know I had it in me to write things like that, did you?) In other words, the salt in the brine has to swap out with moisture in the meat's cells. The only way to know if you've got the right concentration? Put a medium-sized yellow-fleshed potato in the pot, a spud a little smaller than your fist. If it doesn't float, there's not enough salt. Stir in more, in 1/4-cup increments, until the potato floats.

Why might you not have enough? The viscosity of your apple cider, the residual moisture in your salt from ambient humidity. And by the way, the amount of salt is right at the top of what the brine can take. So to dissolve more, you might have to bring the thing back to a low boil again. Sigh. What we won't do for ham!

Once the spud does, take it out, throw it out, then put that honkin' big ham in the pot. Cover and refrigerate for 48 to 60 hours, turning every 8 hours or so. No joke. You gotta turn that thing so it gets even coverage. And let me tell you this: when you go to haul a big pot with a big ham from the counter to the fridge, have a plan. I went through about two rolls of paper towels cleaning up the frickin' mess on the floor.

OK, two to two-and-a-half days later, take the ham out of the marinade. That hunk is now cured. It's perfect and will stay the way you like it for a long while. Like what you hoped would happen to your mate but didn't. Seriously, the ham out of the brine will now stay in your fridge, loosely covered, for a week or a little more.

Oh, and toss out that brine. But be careful: a ton of salt in a septic system ain't a good idea. And hammy brine in the woods around your house--if you live as rurally as we do--ain't a good idea either. It invites all sorts of furry well-wishers to the property.

When you're ready to cook the behemoth, it has to be soaked again to restabilize its salt content. Yep, you're not done yet. Otherwise, you'll be eating Dead Sea ham. So put the chunk of meat in that washed pot and fill it with cool water. Refrigerate it for 12 hours, turning it once or twice.

NOW you're ready to prepare it. Today, we're going to braise it. The book explains how to do that, or to roast it, or even to smoke it. But braise it is--because I love it this way for both the roast at the table and the sandwiches the next day.

Take the ham out of the now-salty water; discard that water. Put them in a big roasting pot, one large enough that you can fit the lid on tightly. Pour in enough apple cider to come about halfway up the meat. Toss in a few garlic cloves and a couple cinnamon sticks.

Bring it to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to low and braise at the merest bubble--and I'm not kidding about this: you should be able to count the bubbles as they form, not one at a time, but not so many that you lose count--until an instant-read meat thermometer shoved into the center of the chunk without touching bone registers 170F, between 5 and 6 1/2 hours, depending on how big the ham was and how slow the braising was. Check the pot occasionally--if the liquid in there has gotten too low, add a little more water to compensate.

Transfer the ham to a carving board, then peel off the outer rind, as well as the fat under it. (One must have a modicum of restraint.) Let the meat rest for 10 minutes before carving it into 1/4-inch thick slices. Make sure you have some cole slaw and baked beans to go on the side.

And the leftovers? Wait until you see the book! Brie, Grits, Ham, and Apple Casserole. Deviled Eggs with Ham. Ham and Corn Chowder. Sweet Potato Ham Hash with Pecans and Cranberries. Mac and Ham and Cheese. And my personal favorite: Split Pea and Ham Burgers. Plus many more.

And even better, you don't need to cider cure a ham to have any of those. Just go to the deli case of your market, buy the required amount of ham for the recipe, and have a porky feast. And why not? Everyone should be obsessed with this hindquarter.