I am not talking about just a venison ham, the rear quarter of a deer, but real sugar cured ham made from venison instead of pork. I have made Canadian and Buckboard bacon in the past with cures and decided to cure a venison ham the other day just to see how it would come out. I did not have any Morton Sugar Cure on hand, which is my go to product for curing meat, so I just threw together a cure and was amazed at how good the resulting product was. I am sure I will be experimenting some more with this until I get it just right, but it is something you should try if you like cured meats.
My cure was as follows:
2 cups of brown sugar
2 cups of kosher salt
1 tablespoon of garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon of cloves
1/2 teaspoon of allspice
1 level teaspoon of pink curing powder (Prague Powder)
This was all mixed very well and I packed it all around the venison ham and put it into a large plastic food bag placed in a large bowl in the refrigerator for two weeks. I turned the ham in the bag over daily until two weeks had passed. At the end of two weeks of curing I rinsed the ham in cold water, soaked it for twenty minutes in a cold water bath and then rubbed it with a heavy coat of black pepper. It was then baked on a rack in a pan until an internal temperature of 160 degrees was reached. It was quite a surprise to my wife and I how good this ham tasted. We are going to slice it paper thin to use in several ways and are planning to cure at least a couple more deer hams this season. I plan on going for three weeks on the next ham to make sure the cure penetrates all the meat. I think you could do a deer backstrap in about 7-10 days. I also want to smoke one of these hams with oak wood to see how that turns out. Give it a try, it is not hard and the flavor is wonderful, I think you will enjoy the results and you will have made it yourself. Wild Ed
4 comments:
Holy cow, this looks good.
Does curing extend the shelf life of meat? I ask because I have been asked about storing meat with out refrigeration.
Tom it can but the ham would most likely have to be smoked and hung in a cool place. I know when I was young my grandfather had hams hanging inside a small rock house they called the spring house. It stayed cool about 4 months out of the year. I would read one of the major publications on curing and preserving meat before I depended on it. I know that cured meats last much longer than non-cured in the refrigerator. Ed
Ed that looks fantastic. I cure mu pork about the same way. I use cure #1. I like it better than Morton's I like being able to control my salt. CF
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