11 replies to this topic

[S.K.]

ok my husband helped out a friend and they killed their big and but some in the frezzer fresh and cured some

well they gave them a piece of both cured and not so I want to cook them and would like them to taste good but i have never worked with fresh ham like this just store bought ones that have the spiral ones.

Please help me how do I cook it and for how long for the fresh one

and what about the one that was cured not sure what they cured it with do I soak it then cook it.

PLEASE PLEASE help me

thanks

[Cat]

I've only cooked the store-bought hams or butcher-shop smoked hams, so this is new to me.

BUT - here is a link to a bunch of answers. If you like Paula Deen, hers is first. But there are lots more, and I wasn't sure what you might like best. So I'll let you sort them out.

http://www.dogpile.c...g fresh ham&ql=

One nice thing you'll find is that your fresh ham *won't* be pumped full of "flavor enhancers" and water!

[Midnightmom]

How is fresh ham "ham?" I thought ham was smoked pork and that fresh ham was another name for pork? Is it the cut of meat that makes it ham?

[Jeepers]

I always thought the cut of meat that made a ham a ham is called the Butt.

[Philbe]

Perhaps Philbe's wrong...but when my kinfolk slaughtered...hams were rear portions that were salted and hung in the smoke house. Shoulders were sometimes salted & smoked also. Some was salted and saved for "salt pork" and/or bacon strips. Some was salted and used for pork butte and other "unsmoked" pieces, ie: pork chops etc. Surely somebody around here knows the answers!? And if nothing else, I'll bet the web's got some answers.

[Jeepers]

Humm, it might be a leg of ham. Turns out the butt is on the shoulder.

http://www.easy-bbq-...cuts-chart.html

[Annarchy]

Here are a couple threads on it:

http://mrssurvival.c...=42281&hl=bacon
http://mrssurvival.c...=42202&hl=bacon

[Midnightmom]

Jarred and canned my ham: 15 psi for 75 mins. The liquid (plain water) turned the color of dark brown with a red tint, and the meat pieces shrank and took on a brownish color too. Opened one up for dinner.............pieces are nice and tender but otherwise flavorless. I guess I should have added some salt to the water when packing it. Not really the results I was looking for! I have another ham to process and I would like different/better results. Can I pre-cook the ham in the oven, or boil it in a pot to rid it of the sugars(?) that turned it dark???

[Violet]

I suppose you could precook, but all the people I deal with say canned ham is pretty bland after canning it.
Commercial industry can use all sorts of additives to their products. We just cannot duplicate some things at home.
Personally, I don't recommend canning ham, but each person has to decide from themselves if they want to try it. All I can do is post what I know and let you all decide what to do with the information.

Now, as far as I know, there is city ham and country ham. Here we just have city ham. Country ham is totally different and you do soak it first. My folks were from the south, so I know what it is. Sorry, but YUCK to country ham. To me it tastes like salty spoiled meat. No red eye gravy for me, either.
So, do you have country ham or city ham ?
There is fresh picnic hams here, that is just pork with the skin still on it. Guess you call it skin. The pork roasts just are raw meat, where the picinic hams that are not smoked have a skin on them, but you cook like a regular pork roast. It is not smoked.
Oh, why do they have to confuse us all ? LOL !

[Midnightmom]

I think mine is what YOU call a city ham! I've had a "country" ham only one time that I can remember. It was a Virginia ham. It had to be soaked for two days to remove the salt and rehydrate the meat. It still tasted salty if I remember correctly. No red-eye gravy for me either---I don't drink coffee!!!

As to canning the second ham, I think I will cook it, cut it, and freeze it. Or perhaps, cut it and freeze it, and cook it as needed. O.o

I guess I will just cook, shred, and can the THREE pork roasts and 20 lbs of ground beef I also bought!

[Wm.Mike]

Ok some definitions

 

It is all pork.

Rear leg is what "ham" is made from. It is not ham until it is cured. Country ham is dry cured in salt and then hung to dry. City ham in cured in a salt brine. Both can be smoked. Cut the ham into two parts give you a butt ham and a shank ham.

Pork butts come from the shoulder so pork butt, pork shoulder are the same also sometime called the collar. The lower part of the front leg is the picnic.

Country ribs are pork butt cut into strips, it can also be cured for bacon. Most pulled pork is from the pork butt and picnic. 

Ham steaks, or pork steaks are pork butt cut into steak form.

 

Mike

[Philbe]

Thanks Mike!