Ramble On

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

The Pork Diaries: First Ham



The hams we get off of the pigs at Public House Produce are so big that it is a challenge to feast on them in one sitting.  And so we lost quite a bit of ours last year in the freezer, due to freezer burn after a couple of power outages (power in Alexandria, four miles from the White House, can be surprisingly flaky).

This year I decided not to send the ham out for curing and used the band saw in the butchering shed to cut it into six pieces.  On Saturday, I cooked the first piece on the backyard smoker.

I figured I could cook it more or less as I would the shoulder roasts I’ve been doing, with a rub and then indirect heat for a couple of hours.  It worked out, we had some tasty ham – there is absolutely no similarity to pulled pork in this outcome despite my using the same cooking method.

I used a bit of cayenne in this rub, just enough for a pleasant bite.  The Florida corn is in (there's no comparison to what I get during the summer out in Page County though), so I paired the ham with it and some green beans.

Now my thinking is to do the same thing with the ham next year, except send out half of it in these smaller cuts for curing and smoking.  I’ll keep the other half in these small ham roasts.

I’ve still got quite a few of these to cook though – for now!

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