Video from Steven Riachlen - "Ham In a Hurry" - well done and worth watching.
A colleague sent me a link to a video describing how to make ham at home using a pellet grill. The video and recipe are from Steven Raichlen's Barbeque Bible. I've watched the video a couple of times and am preparing my plan for how to attempt making ham at home. My plan is to use a pair of pork loin roasts from Costco. Costco sells Swift Premium pork loin roasts in a twin pack. I've used these before and they are very fresh and high quality pork roasts. I have to acquire a meat injector in order to make sure the middle of the meat is cured effective. My normal mode is to visit Amazon.com and see what they have to offer in this area. The list of offerings on Amazon.com is pretty impressive. I'm leaning toward the Grill Beast injector. The set of injector needles and the capacity seem like it would work well for this project.
The recipe for the brine, from Raichlen's web site:
- 1 quart warm water
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 3/4 cup kosher salt, plus salt for the glaze
- 3 tablespoons Morton Tender Quick
- 5 bay leaves
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 2 star anises
- 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
- 1 tablespoon fennel seeds
- 1/2 teaspoon hot pepper flakes
- 1 quart ice water
I will not include pepper flakes in the brine or the glaze. Rather than using Morton Tender Quick, I will use Anthony's Pink Salt, which I have an ample supply of and have used many times for curing bacon.
The recipe for the glaze, again from Raichlen's web site:
- 2 cups orange juice
- 1/2 cup Jack Daniel’s
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 2 whole star anise
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 teaspoon cloves, plus 2 cloves for pinning bay leaves to the pork
- 1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
- 2 tablespoons butter
When I have all of the supplies and ingredients in hand, I'll create a new post to show my process.
