Learning to make prosciutto at home plus an easy appetizer recipe
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Meanwhile, pour the red wine and stock into the pan with the remaining shallots. Blend the cornflour with 3 tbsp water, add to the pan with the redcurrant jelly, and stir until thickened. Season to taste and allow to bubble for at least 5 mins until it has become a sauce.
A whole hind leg is not a prerequisite for curing. A shoulder, a piece of front leg, or a piece of chuck, as in the case of Italian Coppa, give excellent results. In many parts of Europe, the farmers cure and dry their own hams as well as smaller pieces of pork to be used either raw or cooked in sauerkraut or other types of dishes.
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Lard impedes bacterial growth like the salt did in the early stages. Hang it to age for another seven to eight months. Massage ham again with 1/2 of the reserved garlic paste.

On a 21st day put pork into a pan, cover with water, and let stand for 24 hours. Hang it up to dry in a dry place that’s impervious to flies for 5 months. You'll need a sharp knife; the traditional prosciutto knife is about 12 inches long and 1/2-inch wide.
Tuscan-Style Prosciutto
The ham should be started on the thickest side , which is the top, round and meatiest part of the leg. The ham may be slightly covered with mildew in some places. Just wipe it off, using a a wet towel and trim the skin to expose the meat. The thick top skin as well as the underside of the ham can also be cleaned with a stiff brush wetted with water, then dried with paper towels. Under the thick skin of the top you will have a very white, beautiful fat. Keep this fat to cook with lentils, beans, stews, and so forth.
It’s often served on a charcuterie board for two, but you can also make it for dinner with my Prosciutto Arugula Pizza or my prosciutto pasta. And since this pasta with prosciutto makes two servings, you can make it as an easy date night recipe at home or for your Christmas Dinner For Two. Buy the freshest and best quality hind legs of ham you can find. Using a sharp, sturdy knife, remove the pelvic bone attached to the joint of the femur, or thighbone , or have the butcher do this. Wrap the meat in cheesecloth, then tie and hang it somewhere flies won’t be able to get to easily.
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As this elegant recipe demonstrates, it also makes for a quick and easy appetizer when baked to a crisp in a muffin tin and filled with a creamy goat cheese mouse. Perfectly sized for noshing, just shape, bake and fill. While the pasta is cooking, heat your oil in a large skillet then once hot, add the prosciutto and onion. To make your pasta with prosciutto, first bring a large pot of water to a boil. Once boiling, add a handful of kosher salt then the spaghetti.
In a small bowl, whisk together your egg, Parmesan, and pasta water. Right before draining, reserve some of the pasta water to help make the sauce later. I like to leave a measuring cup inside the colander as a reminder. The first thing you’ll learn about prosciutto bacon—it’s not cheap!
You can eat it at this point or smoke it. It went from looking like something you’d find in the trash to something very possibly edible. Luckily, I was at a table with some practiced hands, including those of Fernando Fiumara of Raccoon Township, who’s been making prosciutto for about 20 years. He not only lent me his boning knife but did much of the carving with/for me. Patrick Dicicco, of Aliquippa, prepares the leg of a pig during a prosciutto-making class at the American Italian Club in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania on Saturday, Jan. 23, 2021. (Alexandra Wimley/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS)As a food writer who loves all things Italian, I’ve pondered the class for years.

I’m Carla, a 30-some childfree woman from Pittsburgh who’s sharing recipes for two and small batch recipes made from scratch because not everybody cooks for a crowd. Curing meat requires specific expertise and failure to cure meat properly may result in sickness or death. If you have no experience in this area, we advise you to consult an expert to teach you proper techniques and applications. Cover exposed flesh of the ham with rendered lard.
Fill the hole where the knee would have been completely with salt, so there is no meat left uncovered. 3) Cut through the skin along the path of the thighbone and down to it, following the contours of the bone, cutting all the way round the bone to remove it. The inside can be trimmed before being salted, reformed and the two edges sewn up with a simple blanket stitch using twine and a trussing needle.
Completely cover the rest of the meat with salt, making sure it comes up the sides and covers the top by a couple of centimetres. Place a big board that fits the box on the top of this and then a heavy weight. The weight is there to get as much blood as possible out of the leg.
Some truly special Tuscan prosciuttos are finished in wooden cases surrounded by wood ash for two years. On the 48th day, rinse well with a mixture of equal parts of warm water and distilled white vinegar. Repeat rinsing with fresh water and vinegar until ham looks well cleaned. 4) Wash your ham to remove all salt from the surface and dry with a clean towel or with kitchen paper towels.

I was so concerned that I emailed a picture of the ham to Justin Severino of Salty Pork Bits for advice. The ham was to be hung in a room between 50 and 60 degrees with at least 60% humidity. A sticky fly trap would quell any worries about maggots. And the white fluffy mold that would soon start growing on it? Soon he, too, was handing out homemade prosciutto at house parties and gatherings at the club.
Making Prosciutto at Home
When you’re ready to cook your bacon, separate the thin slices and lay them on your cooking rack. While I was problem-shooting this recipe, I found that the slices would often roll up while they were cooking because the bacon is sliced so thin. To prevent this, you can take another cooking rack and place it directly on top of the bacon—kind of like a cooking rack sandwich. If you put it together this way, before cooking, it ensures that your end result is a nice, flat piece of bacon. It always comes as a surprise to some people to learn that country ham , French Rosette and even the Swiss Bunderfleish of the Grisons are just plain, uncooked, raw meat. Prosciutto works in so many dishes — wrapped around melon slices, tucked between bread with cheese, as a topping with arugula on pizza, folded into pasta.
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