You Can Cure Your Own Porkless Hams!

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Then, as the hunting season drew to a close, I killed my last deer and put both hindquarters in brine. Two weeks later we took the finished quarters from the smoker. Triumph! We've been eating ham with eggs, ham with homemade rye bread, baked ham dishes, and just plain raw ham ever since. Now we're experimenting with ways to keep the meat without refrigeration, and have met with some success . . . but, whether we completely solve that one or not, we do know how to put lean meat on the breakfast table.

To MOTHER's readers who are forbidden to eat pork, or would like an alternative to the usual fatty ham, I offer the results of my efforts. The method that follows is based on venison, but those who have no access to wild deer could try preparing any other lean meat in the same way. It might be worth an experiment, though I can't predict the outcome. Note: Venison cured by this process is a beautiful natural red. If you substitute another meat, however, you might want to add saltpeter to the brine to preserve the color. (As many readers are aware, sodium nitrate—the "saltpeter" commercially used for this purpose—is under strong suspicion as a carcinogen. Potassium nitrate—the traditional saltpeter of home cures-doesn't share this stigma . . . yet! . . . but you may well decide that the benefit (?) of eating meat with a brighter hue isn't worth the potential risk. —MOTHER.)

You can make your own venison hams by following these four steps:

[1] PREPARE THE MEAT. The hindquarters and blackstrap about 50 percent of the animal—are the only portions that can be cured. The rest must be eaten in the usual manner.

All bone and fat (which will turn rancid in the smoker) must be removed and the muscles of the hindquarters separated out. The end result will be lean strips of backstrap and chunks of leg muscle from 3 to 5 inches in diameter.

[2] PREPARE THE BRINE. In a container large enough to allow the immersion of all the meat, mix a salt solution with a density sufficient to float a fresh egg. That's not as simple as it sounds! It would be quite natural to proceed as follows: Fill the container with the required amount of water, dump in salt, stir, add the egg and watch it sink, mix in more salt, stir, try the egg again . . . and so forth until it floats. Right? Wrong! Ham cured in such a brine will be too salty.

The correct procedure is just the reverse: Pour salt into the container and add enough water to dissolve the crystals completely. Then introduce the egg, which will stand high on the surface. Slowly add more water and stir until the egg sinks slowly and barely makes it back to the top. At that point the brine is ready.

The reason for all this hocus-pocus is that crystal salt (completely) dissolves much more slowly than you think and accurate testing "by eye" of the cure's strength is impossible when you attempt to use the first method. At the stage when the upper level of liquid is just dense enough to float an egg, there'll be undissolved salt—or a layer of stronger brine-lurking at the bottom of the container all ready to make trouble later on.

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