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Thursday 17 April 2008

The Pig.

Pippa and Gus asked if we want in on a pig. It must be coming from someone with a thick accent because the process of ordering left a few details unclear. These include;

Is it alive?
What sort of pig is it? A small, cute, babe sort of piglet or a mahoosive perma hungry tusked sausage monster?
If it is alive are we expected to ride it / make friends with it / feed it up and have to kill it?

Is it dead?
If its dead is it in pieces?
If it is dead and huge, how on earth do we cook it?

How do you make parma ham?

1 comment:

jeremy69 said...

Walt! First, cut its legs off. Then, you need lots of salt, for procuitto they add black pepper, coriander seeds, allspice and sometimes chili peppers.

For serrano the same but only pepper, then the next bit of equipment is a wooden vessel or plastic tub, a piece of plywood and a heavy weight, like a cinder block, covering the entire ham with the salt (your're looking at at least 5-10lbs of Kosher salt) and spices.

Then after 3-6 months it needs to be air dried for 3-6 months, hanging in a draught free area, in Italy and Spain they hang them in their attics. In Andalucia they hang them in bars, pre-smoking ban, as the fag smoke also infused the ham...easy!