Home Made Hams and the Wilshire Cure

Of the thousands of different cure recipes for ham the essence remains the same. To take a large piece of pork and to cure it in salt. European and Chinese civilizations were founded on the pig and two thousand years ago the Gauls were exporting their hams to Rome. The Gallic hams were made from the wiry lean stock that was farmed throughout Europe. It wasn't until the Chinese and European civilizations collided that the modern pig was born. The European and Chinese pigs were first crossbred in England around 1760 by the Leicestershire breeder Robert Bakewell. It is from this happy marriage that we have been dining ever since. The Farnham superstar William Cobbett once wrote that the cottager's pig should be too fat to walk more than 100 yards. That may have been the fashion back then but the current vogue is for a leaner animal. Our spring batch of Farnham old spots have spent this weekend storming about the place like rocket fueled quarterbacks. I've spent the weekend pondering their hams.
In order to make a demonstration for new joiners to the Guerrilla ham club I popped along to Michael Humphries' butcher shop in Rowledge. Michael had set aside a leg of pork for me to cure. Its a monster. 9 kilos and not an once of fat. We will be serving it up for lunch on the pig day. Michael is a great butcher and distant relative of mine, there's nothing that he can't tell you about the produce he's selling. In my opinion, he is by far the best butcher for miles around. However, I returned from his store slightly crestfallen. He explained that the leg had come from a three way cross-breed, farmed over towards Godalming. Duroc X Large White X Landrace. Duroc for the hardiness to raise them outside. Landrace to give them a long back and hence more bacon and chops. Large white for the sheer size. Michael was pretty pleased with this, and it is indeed a large piece of meat, but three breeds and not one of them was there for the flavour. Its a fine specimen of its type. There's lots of it and yet it is pale and insipid looking. I dare say you could slice off a lump and fry it and it might taste like chicken. Only more bland. Its little wonder people don't buy much pork anymore, it got too cheap to be any good. Or you might say that farmers got too good at farming it.
So we need to add flavour. What better way than to cure it in the Wiltshire style with beer and black treacle. This is a wet cure as opposed to immersion or dry cure. The principle methods of making a ham are as follows:

a) Dry cure. Rub with either salt or a mixture of salt and sugar. This is a fairly slow acting cure and gives a mellow flavour without doing too much damage to the meat.
b) Immersion cure. Mix up salt and sugar in water, add spices and immerse your pork in the liquid. This is a faster acting cure and the salt will harden the meat making it tougher. The addition of the sugar slows the take up of the salt and lessens the hardening effect.
c) Wet cure, somewhere in between. There's not enough cure to cover the meat but the meat is partially exposed to the cure liquor and turned daily.
d) Air cured. Not so much a cure but an additional procedure following a traditional wet or dry curing.
e) Hybrid. Normally a dry cure followed by an immersion and then often a period of maturation where the salts are given time to equalise within the meat. Smithfield and Virginia hams are nice examples of these.

In earlier posts (below) I have given some examples of immersion cures and air dried methods. What follows are instructions for a simple Wiltshire Cure. We had a Wiltshire cured ham this Christmas and it was delicious. Choose the beer carefully as the flavour is quite prominent.

Wiltshire cure ham wet method

Enough for 6.5 kg

Treacle 156 gm
Salt 156 gm
Black Pepper 5 gm
Beer 440 gm (440 ml Can of Beer)
Cure #1 = 20 gm (151 ppm Nitrite Ingoing)
Saltpetre 2 gm (257 ppm Nitrate Ingoing)
10 Juniper Berries

Weight of brine = 779 gm

Method

Heat beer to boiling point. Then add salt, treacle and black pepper. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove from heat, let it cool to below 20 degrees and then add the Cure#1 and Saltpetre. You may need a set of jewellers scales to weigh the small quantities accurately. Weigh the finished brine mixture and with preboiled water bring up to 779 gm. Now add the Juniper berries. Put meat and cure into a suitable container (non metalic) and turn the meat in the brine. If possible put the meat in a vacuum bag and seal it in with the liquid. Leave the meat in brine in a fridge, for 5 days per 500 gm or no less than 14 days Turn every day. If you have access to a brine pump you might consider pumping the brine into the meat to ensure a rapid and even cure. This doesn't detract from the flavour or create an artificial product it just allows the cure to reach the centre quicker.

Once you judge your ham to be cured you can remove from the brine and wash. Store in the fridge uncovered to allow to mature or you may choose cook it straight away. To cook it, gently poach or steam until the core temperature is around 70 degrees. Then remove the skin, cross hatch the fat with a sharp knife and glaze. A mixture of brown sugar and English mustard is traditional. Marmalade is a novel alternative. Now put into a hot oven and bake for 30 minutes or until the glaze begins to caramelize.