Pressed Ham Lunch Meat Recipes

HOMEMADE HAM SAUSAGE

Steps:

• Pour half of the water into a small bowl. Dissolve the salt and cure in it.
• Put the remaining water into a blender and add the garlic. Blend to puree the garlic. Add the pepper to the garlic and water mixture.
• Put the pork cubes and ground pork into a large bowl. Add the cure mixture and the garlic-water mixture.
• Mix well using your hands until the meat sticks to your hands, adding more water, 1 teaspoon at a time, to make it stickier if needed. It should stick to your inverted hand when it's done.
• You can use a sausage stuffer to put this mixture into casings (see article above) or you can use the saran wrap method here. We are proceeding with the Ham Maker instructions.
• Place the meat mixture into the Ham Maker and use the spring loaded lid to pack the meat tightly.
• Get a large pot. Put enough water in the pot so that, when you add the Ham Maker, the water level will be slightly above the the level of the meat in the Ham Maker.
• Heat water to a low simmer (around 185 to 190°F on a candy thermometer, but small infrequent bubbles is what you're looking for).
• Place the Ham Maker in the water and insert a thermometer into the meat using the hole in the top of the Ham Maker. Cook until internal meat temperature is 160°F, around 1.5-2 hours.
• Once it reaches the temperature, remove the Ham Maker from the pot of water and put it into the fridge to cool completely. It's best to leave it for we hours to make sure it's really cold.
• Once fully cooled, run Ham Maker under warm water. This helps to loosen the ham sausage.
• Take out thermometer, take off lid and spring. Turn the Ham Maker upside down allowing the ham sausage to slide out.
• Slice and serve.

PRESSED & SMOKED HAM - MAKING COLD CUTS AT HOME - HOMEMADE HAM LOAF

Steps:

• To prepare the meat cut it into cubes of around an inch in size. This is 1.4kg of relatively lean pork shoulder. I have separated it into 2 lots.... 1 kg and 400 grams.
• Run the 400g batch through your mincer using the fine mincing plate.
• Place all of the meat and mince in your food mixer bowl. Add the salt and saltpetre, then the sugar, garlic powder, white pepper and ground nutmeg. Pour in the water.
• Put the bowl on the mixer and using the kneading hooks, knead the meat continuously for 10 minutes. This liberates protein from the meat, causing it to start emulsifying. This action along with the salt and heat is what combines the meat into a homogenous block of meat.
• Once you've finished kneading the meat you will notice just how sticky it has become. Cover the bowl with cling-wrap and place this in your refrigerator for a full 48 hours to cure.
• Once the pork has cured, load the meat into the ham press. Put the pressing plate in place and secure the lid. Press the thermometer through the lid into the center of the pork.
• Place the pot in a water bath at 80c or 175f for about 2 hours until the internal temperature of the ham is 80c or 175f.
• To achieve this you can use an induction cooker with digital temperature control, or what I have heat is an electronic pressure cooker with temperature control.
• Once the internal temperature of the ham has reached 80c or 175f, remove the pot from the bath and remove the meat from the cylinder.
• And there it is, a beautifully firm pressed ham. This is ready to eat as is, and is absolutely amazing, but we're going to take it a step further.
• Place the ham on a clean dish cloth and dry all of the surface.
• Place the ham on a rack in a pan and allow this to air-dry for about 6 hours in your refrigerator.
• After the drying time, lift the rack up and balance it diagonally across the corners of the pan.
• Fire up the cold smoke generator and place the ham in the barbecue. Remember that we're cold smoking.... there is not heat applied and none of the burners are running.
• As far as smoking time goes, you can smoke from 90 minutes to 18 hours, depending on how strong you want the smoking flavor. I am running smoke for 90 minutes using a mild flavor cherry wood chip.
• Once smoking is complete, remove the ham from the smoker and package it whole or slice and package before refrigerating.