Jlawrence,

Does this recipe appear to be the Crab Norfolk?

Thanks!

Evil Ronnie wrote:Rub the entire surface of the ham liberally with Dijon mustard, followed by packing the ham with as much dark brown sugar as possible. Slowly bake in a 250 to 275 degree oven until warm throughout.

In Virginia, the ham is traditionally served at room temperature, sliced paper thin.

You cook this for roughly how long? (My ham weighs 18 pounds)

Is this heating through to create the crust, then serve? Or are you creating the crust, then cooling to room temperature in the Virginia style?

Thanks!

Cathy,

At 250 to 275, it should take two or three hours to bring the ham back up to 140 or so, internal temp. I would do this even if you plan to serve it at room temp.

Yes, the baking sets the glaze.



fyi: Very untraditional crab Norfolk recipe. I've never, ever seen corn in crab Norfolk.

Ronnie,

Thanks for the information. My ham has just finished simmering. I used 6-liters of Dr. Pepper to simmer it in, which has given it a nice mahogany color. I've taken pictures for show-n-tell later on.

I found another Norfolk Crab recipe which looks more familiar. AT least the restaurant is known to me, which I hope helps. The other recipe didn't seem right, though I found descriptions suggesting it was a type of soup; which it simply isn't.

HI,

I was at the Waukegan Fruit Market (Lewis & 10th), where I saw two Burger Smokehouse hams hanging behind the counter. The guy advised the cost was $2.29 per pound:



Waukegan Fruit Market Inc
951 South Lewis Avenue
Waukegan, IL 60085
847-244-1505

I was surpised to see Burger smokehouse products at the Galewood Jewels (North Ave. and Narragansett). Vacuum packed country ham slices, jowl bacon, and I believe fatback and small-ish smoked shoulder. Strangely, they didn't have regular belly bacon. I tried a bit of the country ham raw, curious if it would have any similarity to air-dried uncooked products like proscuitto (read "Pig Perfect" for more about the quest for real country ham) and while there was some similarity, the Burger's slice was too wet, without the firm, dry texture. Very salty when raw, but of course it's supposed to be cooked. And no, I don't have trichnosis. Haven't gotten into the jowl bacon yet, but that will go into an alla matriciana sauce this weekend.

grace

As much as I'm trying to wean myself from Jewel and other chain grocers, they're damned convenient for some things. I stopped at the Jewel tonight at Addison/Elston to pick up the fixings for a recipe my mom just sent me from TX (potato casserole: frozen hash browns, cream of potato soup, and cheddar cheese). My mom is great, but outside of a few specialties, she was never much of a serious cook.

Anyway . . .

For those of you who remember this thread or this post:

I am partial to the 18-month attic aged hams from Burger's Smokehouse. There's always a commotion when the hams arrive at the mailroom at work.

I just remembered that I had some slices in the freezer, so they just received the griddle treatment.





The bacon and sliced country ham jowls are mighty nice, too.

about Burger's Ozark Hams, I was ecstatic to discover two of their vacuum-packed products in the meat section: country ham slices (bone-in center, and center and ends; boneless centers and ends) and jowls (sliced and cubed). It looks to be of the same quality as the stuff I've mail-ordered from them.

If only Jewel would stock their attic-aged hams . . . .

Cheers,
Wade

During a recent visit with a friend, I had the opportunity to butcher 2 grass fed, heritage bred pigs. I decided to cure the hams for later use. I butchered the pigs on March 31 and they won't be ready for awhile. Two of the hams are salt cured and two are a salt and brown sugar cure. I rubbed them well with the cure, moved to the refrigerator, and rubbed them twice more over the next week, and then transported them home via a cooler. They are now resting in my basement waiting to be placed in white cotton pillowcases and then hung from the rafters for...





The upper left hand side are fresh strawberries. They were good.
I also cured about 15 lbs of bacon, 4 jowls, and 2 hocks.

Nice griddle Wade

Nice griddle Wade

Thanks kindly. It's one of the best purchases I've made in te past few years. Sturdy, hefty, stainless steel, with grease trough. I use it outdoors on a gas or charcoal grill, and indoors on two stove burners.

Cheers,
Wade

This thread was exactly what this Ozark girl needed to find... We always had to have ham and turkey at the holidays, but my Granny's cooking leaned more to the water-injected, pineapple ring-covered variety. I feel more confident now that the gorgeous 15 lb. Burgers' ham will get the lovin' it needs to reach its full potential on Saturday... plan to soak, simmer, then glaze it, and serve it up with all the trimmin's- blackeyed peas w/ smoked ham hocks, fried okra, mac & cheese, candied sweets, a big mess o' greens, cracklin' corn bread and pies with leaf lard crusts (thanks to the pie thread steering me to paulina mkt.), red velvet cake, and sweet sun tea.
I found the ham at the 55th St. Coop Market in Hyde Park, where I drooled over it for a week and a half... they marked the price down to $1.99/lb, making it $20 cheaper and mine oh mine. It was the only one in the display case when I looked, but maybe they've got more stashed in the back?
Alright, back to the kitchen... I've got fat to render.

Don't hesitate to visit the Burger's website. Twice a year, they have a two for one sale on their attic cured hams. It is a great value and a very good ham.


Burgers Attic Ham with Stone Ground Grits and Redeye Gravy

This seems like a well-informed thread about country ham so I'll try my query here.

I bought a nice-looking country ham from here which I plan to serve Sunday. It is presently soaking.

There are two recipes I'm looking at. The first is from Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock's The Gift of Southern Cooking. You follow her instructions for soaking and simmering for about 4-5 hours, then bake with a glaze that's basically just Madeira and butter. Simple enough.

The other is from Charleston Receipts, the old Charleston Junior League cookbook. You make a... well, kind of a mustard poultice; a crust with mustard and other seasonings. You trim the rind off, apply this crust and bake it inside this crust. Break it off, finish with a glaze of your choice.

I'm assuming, though as often the case with old cookbooks I'm not entirely sure, that part of the point of the crust is that it traps much of the ham's own juice, simmering it in its own stuff and doing much the same as simmering in a pot does. Yes? No? Or are they assuming that like every Charleston housewife, I know to have already boiled my ham? And am I asking for it to be just way too salty this way?

Thoughts, those of you with more country ham experience than me? The madeira route sounds foolproof, but I have to admit the whole crust plan just sounds more romantic, somehow. But I don't want to mess it up by guessing wrong about some of these points.

I soaked one for several hours, steamed it for a couple, and then finished in the oven. It was terrible. not sure if it was the method or the ham itself.

I have this guy from Scott Hams hanging out in my basement, patiently awaiting a Derby Day celebration.

I've never heard of the crust method, although Cissy Gregg, who my mom worked with on the food section of the Louisville Courier-Journal, has a recipe for "Baked Old Ham" which involves wrapping the ham in foil after soaking it (with vinegar) for a few days. A quart of sherry and a pound of brown sugar go into the (hopefully) watertight foil pack around the ham, and then baked at 300° for 15 minutes/lb. At the end of baking, the oven is turned off and the ham is left to rest until it reaches room temp. Then remove the foil, skin the ham, glaze with more brown sugar, and put it back into a 400° oven until the sugar caramelizes. Then refrigerate and slice thin.

It sounds vaguely similar to the crust method, although I imagine you'd have great liquids for a gravy when you open up the foil. I might try this method for the Derby.

Do not let your Scott's ham sit forever. Country hams have mites evidenced when you unwrap your ham and you find dust in partially eroded areas. You can call June Scott and verify.-Dick

Thanks for the advice. I've only had it a week or two, and haven't seen any evidence of dust or mites, but I'll be on the lookout and cut away anything that doesn't look good.

I usually simmer (if the ham is small) or put in a large roasting pan with 1" of liquid and tent with foil (if it's big). The trick, I've found, is just to cook it really really slowly so that the exterior doesn't dry out. I've tried simmering in more interesting liquids and honestly can't say that I've picked up any noticeable difference in flavor - good country ham has a pretty strong flavor to it.

If I'm going to be presenting it to a large group, I'll trim off the skin & some fat after the simmer and do a glaze in a blast of heat from the oven, though if it's just for me I don't bother and break it down in to packages that I vacuum seal for later.


(Sorry for the terrible photo. Note that vise grips are fantastic to hold on to the ham when you slice it)



-Dan

Dept. of Ham Porn:

So I got my country ham from Father's in Bremen, Kentucky:



$38 plus shipping that brought it to about $50, still a relative bargain compared to others going for at least $60 or $70. Does one want a cheap country ham? Well, no, but I found this on some site being touted as the best value out of the ones sampled, so it sounded good to me.

It certainly smelled good-- smoky, funky, hammy. Three days of soaking followed, and then I trimmed, laboriously, the rind off, revealing the naked, prosciutto-like ham underneath:



I had found an intriguing recipe, as mentioned above, in the 1950 Junior League cookbook Charleston Receipts: it called for making a sort of gingerbread shell for the ham, full of cinnamon, cloves, and brown sugar, with a little pickling juice from whatever fruit you have handy thrown in. I rolled this thick dough out (another laborious process):



There's something vaguely Flintstonian about the way that looks, like a drumstick of fried chickenosaurus. Five hours of baking, filling the house with Christmas cookie smells, and it looked like this:



It went off to the side while I prepared other things. Finally the time came to serve it, so I cracked the shell and started carving into it:



Charleston Receipts actually assumes you'll glaze and finish it some other way, but that really wasn't necessary except for appearance, if you wanted a perfect looking ham. As far as flavor went-- it was great, the salty smoky meat being counterpointed by the sweetness that the crust imparted. Some parts were tough, prosciutto-funky, others tender and juicy, the ring of fat was like bacon on some pieces, it was a wonderful meat that revealed different sides of its flavor seemingly with every bite. I think the crust roasting method, as hard work as it was compared to simply baking it with a lot of gooey topping, really did a lot to preserve the ham's own flavor and juices and impart spice notes that enhanced it.



I made biscuits (using my homemade bacon's lard) and had a variety of things to put on it— homemade fig preserves and apple chutney from Edna Lewis' The Gift of Southern Cooking, as well as Stonewall Kitchen's Country Ketchup (which is really good, very tangy and more like a relish than ketchup) and other stuff. But pretty much anything you did with this ham, including cut some off the next morning and pop it straight in your mouth, was plenty good. I'm glad I added country ham to my repertoire. Even if it's not something I'll make often-- as Lincoln said, "There is nothing more like eternity than a train ride of eleven days, unless it's two people and a ham"-- I can easily see making it once a year, setting aside some of the harder chunks for future use in soup, and picking it down to the bone over a couple of weeks each time.

swine dining wrote:I was surpised to see Burger smokehouse products at the Galewood Jewels (North Ave. and Narragansett). Vacuum packed country ham slices, jowl bacon, and I believe fatback and small-ish smoked shoulder. Strangely, they didn't have regular belly bacon. I tried a bit of the country ham raw, curious if it would have any similarity to air-dried uncooked products like proscuitto (read "Pig Perfect" for more about the quest for real country ham) and while there was some similarity, the Burger's slice was too wet, without the firm, dry texture. Very salty when raw, but of course it's supposed to be cooked. And no, I don't have trichnosis. Haven't gotten into the jowl bacon yet, but that will go into an alla matriciana sauce this weekend.

grace

Eating uncooked country ham is a Listeria concern, not trichinosis concern.-Dick

Hi,

I have a Burger Ham I bought maybe 18 months ago. Once Bud Richard mentioned the mites, I picked it up from the corner of my work table to find brown dust underneath. I opened it today to find a lot of brown dust inside the packaging.

I found an article from the University of Kentucky Protecting Home-Cured Meat from Insects and Mites, they suggested:

Over time, (mite) infested areas have a powdery appearance from the buildup of dead mites and their shed outer coverings. Since infestations are limited to the surface, it may be possible to brush most of the mites off. A light coat of vegetable oil can be rubbed thoroughly over the surface to kill the remaining mites and eggs. Repeat the treatment in 7 to 10 days. Improve ventilation as much as possible.
...
Infested Meats
Brush off surface infestations of mites thoroughly and trim off surface damage by insects such as larder beetles or red-legged ham beetles. Cut deeply enough to remove larvae that may have moved along the bone or through layers of fat. Disinfested meat is safe to eat but should be used promptly

If lack of ventilation was a contributor, sitting on my worktable corner is not the same as hanging. However, unless there is some funkiness to the ham, the problem is more on the surface than deep into the meat.

I've got pictures, though I am not sure you want to see that vivid of a demonstration of mite ham infestations.

Regards,

Hi,

Despite the mitey drama, the ham turned out very well:



Regards,

Has anyone tried Johnston County "prosciutto-style" Country Ham? It is currently available (whole) at Costco for a decent price, but I am not familiar with the country ham style of domestic prosciutto. I have tasted La Quercia. Not sure how the style will differ.

Thanks.

As a Missouri country ham fanatic for many decades, I have enjoyed this thread and pictures. My father grew up on a farm in southeastern Missouri his family worked for over 150 years, and raised and butchered and cured their own hams. (Their focus came to be on Aberdeen Angus show cattle, but they always made time for the hogs.) My father was the first to go to college, and went to work for the government. After WW II, he bought a hobby farm in upstate Montgomery County, MD. He fed some cattle, and after a hard day at the State Department, he would come home and... cure hams.

I bought a Missouri country ham every Christmas for twenty-five years or so from Esicar's Smokehouse in Cape Girardeau, just up the road from the family farm. Two years ago, they abruptly closed - after 72 years - and I was left in the lurch for Christmas!

I searched frantically and settled on Colonel Newsone's Country Hams (http://www.newsomescountryham.com) from Kentuckey, for Go*'s sake - and they are quite good, except they tend to cost about $100 instead of the $45 I was used to pay for a 16-or so pound ham from Esicar's. Newsome's hams are guaaranteed to be hung for at least a year - and you should be hung so well.

Esicar's has been acquired and re-opened by a family that raises gress-fed beef in SE MO, and I'm going to give them a shot this Christmas. They sound like a wonderful family business - Dad is the farmer, Mom is a vetrinarian, and several boys take care of cattle production. They do their own slaughter and butchering in an inspected facility.

http://www.americangrassfedbeef.com

I don't have a website address for the smokehouse.

I met one of the sons at a demonstration of their beef at the local WF, and it turned out he knew my late uncle, who ran the faily farm until a few years ago. Was sort of a nice Old Home week.

Just a word from my experience- you don't want to buy a raw ham - this is the entire back leg of a hog we're talking here- unless you have one he1l of a big pot and an impressive heat source. The ham must be simmered for six or eight hours COMPLETELY SUBMERGED in the water.

After that, cool it, slice off the hide leaving 1/4 inch or so of fat, score into one-ince diamonds, insert a clove in each diamond, and slather with mustard and pour over orange juice. Warm in the oven and slice super-thin. If possible, ask the purvaror to remove the aitch bone,which is the upper bone in the ham. Makes it a lot easier to slice. (THINLY)

To put away the rest of the ham, slice into sandwich-size thin slices and vac-pac freeze. Then trims and lumpy stuff can be frozen to be shredded in the Cuisinart for the best ham salad you've ever had.

By the way - as there may be several Jewish members here...

My daughter invited a college classmate who is Jewish to our house for Christmas dinner and I said, with some alarm - we'd love to have him, but be sure you tell him we're having ham. It's already here from Missouri, and that's the menu. He said - not to worry - there's a little-known subparagraph in the dietary laws that says that ham - if it's sliced thin enough - is actually kosher.

Dunno about that myself, but Christmas dinner worked out just fine.

MikeLM wrote:By the way - as there may be several Jewish members here...

My daughter invited a college classmate who is Jewish to our house for Christmas dinner and I said, with some alarm - we'd love to have him, but be sure you tell him we're having ham. It's already here from Missouri, and that's the menu. He said - not to worry - there's a little-known subparagraph in the dietary laws that says that ham - if it's sliced thin enough - is actually kosher.

Dunno about that myself, but Christmas dinner worked out just fine.

Sorry no matter how thin you slice it Ham and any other pork product will NEVER be kosher -

Sorry no matter how thin you slice it Ham and any other pork product will NEVER be kosher -

Well, weinstein5, it looks like we will NEVER be able to have you over for Christmas dinner! Sorry about your sense of humor. but it's obviously kosher.

Yep STRICTLY Kosher - but I still could eat the sides if they are vegetarian -

...I still could eat the sides if they are vegetarian -

Still doesn't look good for an invitation to Christmas dinner... there is likely to be bacon fat involved in the sides. I'm a devotee of the Emeril school of cooking.

Hi y'all

KENTUCKY HAM CURERS QUOTE - "ANYTHIN WORTH HAVINS WORTH WAITIN FO"

My family's 100 year secret Hillbillly Country Ham recipe from Warren County Kentucky -

This talk of country ham reminiscing reminds me of guys who come up to me when I am riding my 1973 Harley (which I bought brand new at 17) and they say "I used to drive a Harley" or "I had one just like that"....both are untrue...

No one drives a Harley...they ride it...and...no one ever had one just like mine...plenty of my parts are handmade...so it's impossible to ever have had one just like mine....they don't even know what a real harley is...it's not a mass produced showroom model for sure

Where am I goiing with this....same with country ham

Smithfield - fithfield - gwaltney- blarney, mularkey whatever....ani't none of it real country ham y'all

Ifn yer smart, you'll buy yer ham from the old man wearin' bibs 24/7/365 ceptn for 2r's on Sunnay moanin'....

This man will have a small crooked sign beside the road at the entrance of his 1/2 mile long driveway or better yet, the driveway that disappears into the woods as it snakes its way back to his stead...

His sign will read - "ham fo sale"

Or better yet get to know this man....lern how to cure yer own...you'll spend just as much in the long run but get the results and pride that one can only get from DIY...

Lern yersef-up an "git her did" I say

Back to the Harley/ham example

No one "used to" cure country ham...y'c it gets in the blood...and no one ever cured a ham just like mine...it's a secret recipe y'all...they done figgered out the Colonel's recipe - but they ain't don figgered out mine...and neva will....it just ain't right by most y'all's standards...but I figger most of them scottish recipes ain't right neither...and up in dem hills-o-kain-tucky...we mostly scottish anyways - think about it - moonshin-in lot the all of us is...scotch didn't stop at the big pond when great granpap come over....and paw-paw and paw an then me an mine....well we all lernt the skiill with a stiill.

But back to HAM

I have a 15.43 pounder on the counter right now - the sow (you fancy dancies say what "porcine") was slaughtered less than 8 hours ago...it's gotta be fresh meat if'n ya gonna cure - u-zlly no mor'n 24 hours off the hoof (is best)

I cuts at the hock and 3 tbs my cure stuffed into the hock end to stop the bone-rot - I can eat rond it but why waste meat - specially wifn the time it take to cure my ham

Remember now - this ham will sit unrefrigerated for at least 4 months and it's sitting on the counter looking rigth now as much as big as a sto-bought-gobbler-turkey (not a wild turkey mind ya) of the same weight - can't do this with a gobbler uh-uh, no way bubba

I willl tell ya this about a basic recipe

...saltpeter - sodium nitrate - sodium nitrite - black peppa - cayenne peppa - dark brown suga - and a secret amount of fresh boiled doe pee...yup....right from the bladder in the urinary tract of a fresh kilt doe-deer...then.....secret ingredients go into the doe pee in our neck of the woods...boilt til jus right...
yup yup...

Maybe i will post a pic or two of my ham throught the pro-sess

TOPCAT

I'm not sure exactly how it came about, but somehow or another laikom, msmre, and I decided to order three country hams + bacon and divvy them up. I ordered a Kite's Ham (Commonwealth of Virginia, represent!), Matt/laikom ordered a 2-year old Berkshire ham from Benton's in Tennessee, and Mark/msmre ordered a 2-year old Scott's Ham from Kentucky.

While I've normally cooked country hams in the past, we all decided we wanted to dig in to them raw, resorting to cooking only if the raw product wasn't appealing. As it turns out... raw country ham is awesome. I'm sure I'll fry some slices up (as we did today), but I can't see myself ever cooking a whole ham again.

The gnarly end of the Kite's Ham - a sure sign of funky pork inside!


My cat, Oliver, was rather enamored with the ham


Today was the day to break in to the salty pork beasts, and we made a group trip down to Butcher and Larder where Rob kindly offered to slice the hams on his bandsaw.

Rob - making quick work of the hams


Cross-section of Kite's ham

Kite's was the youngest of the bunch, at roughly a year old. It was also the leanest. We're not sure if it's because it's unsmoked, and so the flavors really came through, or there's something about the aging process, but this ham brought the deepest, funkiest flavors of the bunch.

Cross-section of Benton's Ham

At the other end of the spectrum, this 2-year aged Berkshire beauty from Benton's ham had heavy smoke and a lot of fat. It was also the most assertively salty. Awesome, awesome stuff. Unfortunately, I thought the texture was the weakest of the group - a bit grainy.

Ham sections on display


Frankenham

As we were divvying up the hams, we assembled our very own magical frankenhams. Mmm... ham.

And then... we ate


Back at my house, we stood around the kitchen, slicing up the various hams, trying them in different configurations, with different condiments, etc. Straight off my deli slicer, on biscuits, wrapped around 3 kinds of musk mellon, fried with red eye gravy, with REB & RAB's tomato jam, on slices of fresh tomato. You name it, we tried it.

My summary? Ham is good. There was no clear winner in the bunch, each was great in it's own way, and is destined for different fates. The Scott's ham was well-balanced, with a bit of smoke, bit of funk, and great texture. Kite's was funky and delicious. Benton's is a smoky, salty beast.

The bacon from the three ham houses was equally different. Kite's sells an unsmoked, dry-cured bacon. While it's pretty good fried up, it's awesome sliced thin and eaten raw. It's kind of like a country lardo, with a deep, salty funk. The Scott's bacon, much like their ham, was well-balanced and fried up well. Benton's? Crazy smoky and salty - I love it dearly, and treasure its rendered fat.

-Dan