Corduroy Orange

Really, the main challenge to preparing this little-known delicacy is figuring out where to procure one. I’m reluctant to give away my family’s secret for fear of draining the supply, but I have met a local farmer who cures his own hogs, and if I’m able to work with him to create a source in Pennsylvania that I’m happy with, I’ll divulge the identity of my mom’s Southern supplier (with her permission of course).

In the meantime, if you do stumble across a source of salt-cured, no water injected, North Carolina-style ham, get yourself one, boy! Them is good eatin’.

The first step toward cooking the ham is soaking it in water with a touch of vinegar. Because there’s been no water injected into this meat, the texture is much drier and the flavor much saltier than any ham available on the market-at-large. The resulting texture and flavor will be too dry and too salty if you don’t soak the ham for a while and let osmosis do its thing. My mom generally soaks hers overnight (about eight to twelve hours or so), but due to a fluke in scheduling over Christmas, I wound up having to soak mine for about thirty-six hours, and I thought the result from the extra-long soak was a bit more pleasant than results from a shorter soak.

This photo is from Christmas, when I was out of the house for a day and a half and could leave it in the sink. This time around, I pressed my large cooler into service and replaced the water halfway through the process, thereby freeing up the sink for everyday use and freshening the soaking liquid for better results.

Once you’ve soaked the ham, transfer it skin side up into a large roasting dish with a rack to pick it up off the bottom so it doesn’t scorch. Fill the roasting dish about halfway up the ham with water, cover it, and let it braise at 300 F for about 25 minutes per pound, minus a half hour or so, in my experience, but that will likely depend on the heat-conducting properties of your roasting dish (mine tends to shorten cooking times in general) and the heat of your oven (mine tends to run a bit hot). When it’s done, the skin should be golden brown and crispy and the bone should move freely.

It’ll smell delicious, and it’s worth picking a couple of shreds from near the bone for tasting at this point, but it’s not done yet. Let the ham cool for several hours until you can comfortably touch it. Then, using a sharp knife, remove the skin.

My mom always leaves on the layer of subcutaneous fat, but I always trim that from my serving, anyway, so I tend to scrape it from the surface of the ham. It’s okay to leave the skin around the hock (and, actually, if you try to remove the skin, you’ll likely wind up removing the whole hock). People generally use the meat from the hock to season beans or soup, but I like to just pull it off once the ham as cooled and eat it then to satisfy my craving for some of this delicious ham.

Once you’ve got the skin trimmed, dot the surface of the ham with whole cloves. They’ll push easily into the flesh. Then, make a thick (I repeat, thick: not gloopy) paste of brown sugar and sherry. Rub this all over the top of the ham, and then put it back in the oven at 350 F for about 20 minutes, or until the paste caramelizes into an attractive glaze.

In the end, you’ll have an attractive and delectable feast appropriate for almost any special occasion (though perhaps not for Purim or Passover). Let the ham cool for several hours before serving. I’ll prepare the ham a day ahead of time, refrigerate it overnight, and then pull it out an hour to an hour and a half before I want to carve it to let it warm back up toward room temperature.

My family tends to get hams only at Christmas and Easter, but there’s no reason to limit yourself to these two holidays —if you can find one.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 12th, 2007 at 12:25 pm and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.