Agricola American Glazed Ham - a classic!
The main star: Agricola Fresh Pork Leg.
Why is our pork leg so special? Well, first of all, we allow our pigs to grow slowly.
We do not rush their growth with any hormones or feed them corn that blows them up to ungodly proportions in very little time. While most US farmers butcher their pigs after 6 or 9 months we bring our pigs to market after 12 to 14 months (and some litters are raised up to 18 months!). This allows the lean meat to grow slowly and mature. Also, our diet does not include any corn or soy, so the fat accumulated around the lean meat is the highest quality of fat you can find.
How do you know? The fat is white like snow, not yellow. We also like our pigs to have a healthy layer of fat because the fat provides the flavor, but
because our pigs are raised on pasture for 8 months of the year, and have plenty of green vegetables all year around, the cholesterol in the meat is much lower compared to a pig raised exclusively on grains.
Finally, we are careful to provide plenty of vegetables rich in vitamin E and carotene, substances that give a rich dark color to the lean meat, almost like beef. Follow this very simple recipe and join the group of very satisfied customers that have purchased our hams.
CURING
Ingredients:
5 gallons of water
salt 450gr /1lb
sugar 215gr/7.5oz
pepper 20gr/ 0.7oz
juniper berries 10 gr/ 0.35oz
cloves 5gr/ 0.17oz
1 onion (chopped in large chunks)
1 celery (chopped in large chunks).
Sorry, our original recipe uses weight, not cups or spoons ... that's the Italian problem in our kitchen :)
Preparation:
Boil the water with the celery and the onions. Bring to a rolling boil (use more than 1 pot). Smash the cloves and berries and mix with the other ingredients. Poor the dry mix into the boiling water and wait till all the sugar and salt are dissolved in the water. Let the water cool down below 40F (we like doing this in the winter so we just need to leave the pots on our porch for an hour or less).
Place the raw ham in a container big enough to hold it but not too big. Poor the solution on top of the ham and make sure the ham is submerged - use a pot as a weight if the ham starts floating. Use a syringe for food to inject the solution into the ham.
Inject the ham 4 or 5 times at angles orthogonal to the bone. Leave the ham in the solution for 1 to 8 days at temperature of 35F or lower (another reason why we prefer doing this in the winter). We like to leave our ham in the brine for 3 days minimum.
SMOKING
Ingredients:
1 lb of hard wood chips
5 Lbs of hard wood chunks
1 handful of cloves
Preparation:
This step is not absolutely necessary but if you have access to a large smoker or a smokehouse it is certainly a nice thing to try.
The truth is that once the ham is cured and cooked, very few people will be able to tell whether it was smoked or not. We cold smoke our family ham - meaning that the temperature of the ham never goes above 40F (mind you that the official temperature for cold smoking is
between 68 and 80F but we like to keep things cool to slow down the development of bacteria). Only use HARD WOOD for smoking. You can try a mix of woods. We like to use maple, apple and cherry because these are the woods on our property but you can find a number of different chips for smoking at local stores such as Home Depot. Dry out the ham and let it sit out at room temperature for 30 min (1 hr if your room temperature is below 40, like it is for us Vermonters). Start the smoke without using any lighter fluid and use only hardwood when making the amber. Once you have a good chunk of amber you can add the smoking chips. Make sure the temperature inside your smoking chamber is low enough. How do you do that? use very little amber or use a very large chamber. We built a 9 feet tall smokehouse - of course we are obsessed with food and most people are not so do not feel you need to follow our footsteps. Smoke for 1.5 hr to 2hr at the most. Score the part with the skin using a sharp knife. You can use different patterns; we like diamonds about 1.5 inches for each side. Inside each diamond poke a little hole and place a clove. If you are ready to cook the ham then move it to the oven, otherwise wrap the whole thing in plastic and place in the fridge. I would not let it sit there more than a couple of days. Have you found an easier way to smoke your ham? Let us know so we can pass the info to others!
COOKING
Ingredients:
your awesome cured and smoked ham
your oven and yes, that's it!
Preparation:
Pre-heat oven to 250F, Place ham in the oven with the skin up so that the middle of the ham sits in the middle of the oven. After 1 hr move the
temperature up to 375F. USDA suggests cooking the ham about 26 minutes per pound once your oven reaches a temperature of 375. If you are in a rush you can pre-heat oven to 375F and start there. When the ham reaches 140 F (measured with a meat thermometer in the thickest part of the ham) turn up the heat to 450F. This will make the skin nice and crispy – if the skin is already brown and crispy you can skip this step (it depends on your oven). When the ham has reached an internal temperature of 140 remove it and let it sit for 30 min. The temperature will continue to rise to 145-150 (USDA recommends a minimum temperature of 145 and resting time of minimum of 3 minutes – taste wise ... you want a longer resting
time).
GLAZE
Do you want to make a glaze?
Ingredients:
3cups brown sugar
1/2 cup of mustard
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
3 tablespoons of maple syrup (of course you have adopted one of our tree at Agricola Sugarworks
and are getting your personal syrup from your own VT tree)
Preparation:
Cook all the ingredients until bubbly then lower the heat and cook till the mix thickens. Once you
have a glaze place on the ham and turn the oven up to broiler and leave there for 10 minutes - do not burn the sugar.
Why is our pork leg so special? Well, first of all, we allow our pigs to grow slowly.
We do not rush their growth with any hormones or feed them corn that blows them up to ungodly proportions in very little time. While most US farmers butcher their pigs after 6 or 9 months we bring our pigs to market after 12 to 14 months (and some litters are raised up to 18 months!). This allows the lean meat to grow slowly and mature. Also, our diet does not include any corn or soy, so the fat accumulated around the lean meat is the highest quality of fat you can find.
How do you know? The fat is white like snow, not yellow. We also like our pigs to have a healthy layer of fat because the fat provides the flavor, but
because our pigs are raised on pasture for 8 months of the year, and have plenty of green vegetables all year around, the cholesterol in the meat is much lower compared to a pig raised exclusively on grains.
Finally, we are careful to provide plenty of vegetables rich in vitamin E and carotene, substances that give a rich dark color to the lean meat, almost like beef. Follow this very simple recipe and join the group of very satisfied customers that have purchased our hams.
CURING
Ingredients:
5 gallons of water
salt 450gr /1lb
sugar 215gr/7.5oz
pepper 20gr/ 0.7oz
juniper berries 10 gr/ 0.35oz
cloves 5gr/ 0.17oz
1 onion (chopped in large chunks)
1 celery (chopped in large chunks).
Sorry, our original recipe uses weight, not cups or spoons ... that's the Italian problem in our kitchen :)
Preparation:
Boil the water with the celery and the onions. Bring to a rolling boil (use more than 1 pot). Smash the cloves and berries and mix with the other ingredients. Poor the dry mix into the boiling water and wait till all the sugar and salt are dissolved in the water. Let the water cool down below 40F (we like doing this in the winter so we just need to leave the pots on our porch for an hour or less).
Place the raw ham in a container big enough to hold it but not too big. Poor the solution on top of the ham and make sure the ham is submerged - use a pot as a weight if the ham starts floating. Use a syringe for food to inject the solution into the ham.
Inject the ham 4 or 5 times at angles orthogonal to the bone. Leave the ham in the solution for 1 to 8 days at temperature of 35F or lower (another reason why we prefer doing this in the winter). We like to leave our ham in the brine for 3 days minimum.
SMOKING
Ingredients:
1 lb of hard wood chips
5 Lbs of hard wood chunks
1 handful of cloves
Preparation:
This step is not absolutely necessary but if you have access to a large smoker or a smokehouse it is certainly a nice thing to try.
The truth is that once the ham is cured and cooked, very few people will be able to tell whether it was smoked or not. We cold smoke our family ham - meaning that the temperature of the ham never goes above 40F (mind you that the official temperature for cold smoking is
between 68 and 80F but we like to keep things cool to slow down the development of bacteria). Only use HARD WOOD for smoking. You can try a mix of woods. We like to use maple, apple and cherry because these are the woods on our property but you can find a number of different chips for smoking at local stores such as Home Depot. Dry out the ham and let it sit out at room temperature for 30 min (1 hr if your room temperature is below 40, like it is for us Vermonters). Start the smoke without using any lighter fluid and use only hardwood when making the amber. Once you have a good chunk of amber you can add the smoking chips. Make sure the temperature inside your smoking chamber is low enough. How do you do that? use very little amber or use a very large chamber. We built a 9 feet tall smokehouse - of course we are obsessed with food and most people are not so do not feel you need to follow our footsteps. Smoke for 1.5 hr to 2hr at the most. Score the part with the skin using a sharp knife. You can use different patterns; we like diamonds about 1.5 inches for each side. Inside each diamond poke a little hole and place a clove. If you are ready to cook the ham then move it to the oven, otherwise wrap the whole thing in plastic and place in the fridge. I would not let it sit there more than a couple of days. Have you found an easier way to smoke your ham? Let us know so we can pass the info to others!
COOKING
Ingredients:
your awesome cured and smoked ham
your oven and yes, that's it!
Preparation:
Pre-heat oven to 250F, Place ham in the oven with the skin up so that the middle of the ham sits in the middle of the oven. After 1 hr move the
temperature up to 375F. USDA suggests cooking the ham about 26 minutes per pound once your oven reaches a temperature of 375. If you are in a rush you can pre-heat oven to 375F and start there. When the ham reaches 140 F (measured with a meat thermometer in the thickest part of the ham) turn up the heat to 450F. This will make the skin nice and crispy – if the skin is already brown and crispy you can skip this step (it depends on your oven). When the ham has reached an internal temperature of 140 remove it and let it sit for 30 min. The temperature will continue to rise to 145-150 (USDA recommends a minimum temperature of 145 and resting time of minimum of 3 minutes – taste wise ... you want a longer resting
time).
GLAZE
Do you want to make a glaze?
Ingredients:
3cups brown sugar
1/2 cup of mustard
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
3 tablespoons of maple syrup (of course you have adopted one of our tree at Agricola Sugarworks
and are getting your personal syrup from your own VT tree)
Preparation:
Cook all the ingredients until bubbly then lower the heat and cook till the mix thickens. Once you
have a glaze place on the ham and turn the oven up to broiler and leave there for 10 minutes - do not burn the sugar.
