It has been almost exactly 18 months since our prosciutto were born on the Big Pig Day in February, 2010.
Since Jamie recently harvested his own Jamon (not prosciutto) of a slightly longer age with a good deal of success, I deemed it was time to do the same with ours. They weighed in at 21.5 lbs. and 25 lbs. at harvest – essentially no weight change since late 2010. One difference is that his did not have lard layered on the cut end, and ours did.
Jamie chose the Jamon (Spanish) approach to harvesting his using the stand the I threw together from stuff in my shop. He did not have to worry about dividing his beast into shares – opting to consume it slowly (and sharing as he did) by carving thin slices along the way. I had to take the Italian route whereby deboning is done. The Italians usually then leave the deboned leg intact and slice it thinly across the grain of the meat for consumption. I had to divide these into shares.
I really had no idea how to proceed with deboning. Jamie provided me with some you tube links demonstrating the process:
Looks simple and straight forward doesn’t it. Not having quite all the parts laying around in my shop to duplicate the device seen in the videos, I decided to wing it without one.
My first task of course was to remove the lard, and I decided to do this on the picnic table on our back deck. I spread an old bath towel on the table. This turned out to work quite well since it provided at large non-skid surface. Here is how they looked:
I first scraped the large amounts of lard off with my hands collecting it on paper towels. I actually though about saving some of it, but the outer layers of it appeared to be a little oxidized or rancid. It turns out that working out in the sun was a good idea as the heat loosened and liquefied the remaining lard which I removed with more paper towels and repeated wiping. It took at least 45 minutes to complete this whole process.
Here is how they looked at that point – a nice golden hue to them:
Closer views of the smaller one:
And the larger one:
Now to the deboning. I attacked the smaller one first by attempting to make a cut from the end of the femur bone sticking out in the cut end of the leg and following the bone down toward the shank. What I did not realize is that following that bone is not as easy as it sounds. Remember that there is a knee joint in there somewhere leading to another bone that comes out the shank end. So, after making a deep cut along the “bone line” and realizing I was no longer hitting bone, I tried spreading the cut open to see what was going on. No bone to be seen where I though it would be. I hacked around and found the bone again and eventually the knee/joint, and with more cutting was starting to get the femur to release from the meet and move in the joint. More cutting/hacking along the other bone (tibia-fibula?) coming out of the joint took place. It took me about 30-45 minutes before I finally got both of the bones out and ended up with two large pieces of meat – one in pretty good shape and the other rather hacked up and looking like this (bones in the background):
On to the other leg. This time I cut the main/larger half of the leg off straight away thinking I could at least preserve it fairly well leaving the other half with the bones in it to be hacked on resulting in two pieces looking like this after the bone removal – another 30 minutes at least (more bones in the background):
Here are closer looks at the two halves of the second and larger leg after deboning. First the half I cut away right off:
And the other half where the bones were:
At this point, I had been at it over two and half hours. I decided to put the cut halves back into the fridge where they had lived for 18 months and attack trimming and cutting into shares in the evening after dinner.
At least now I knew that there were no maggots or other signs of spoilage. Of course I had been tasting scraps resulting from the hacking. They were quite salty, but the underlying flavor was quite good. I knew that when chilled and thinly sliced we had a good product.
Here are the four halves on our kitchen counter that evening (color rendering under the fluorescent lights is not great):
And closer looks of the smaller leg:
And the larger leg:
I trimmed obviously unusable stuff (too dry or funky looking) and cut into pieces (essentially dividing each of these four longitudinally, then into smaller pieces) that could be divided for shares:
More cutting and dividing into shares by shape and weight as best possible to be equitable led to these piles:
And finally wrapped in heavy duty foil and back into the fridge in plastic bags/shares:
I tried to provide each share with one well blocked piece of meat easily suitable for a slicer and two more oddly shaped pieces. I forgot to weigh the net product result, but I estimate it to be between 30 and 35 lbs. There was weight lost from the lard, bones, trim and just plain waste pieces. Keep in mind that the skin is still on. Before attempting any thin slicing either by hand or machine, trim some of the skin back from the edge of the side that is to be sliced – unless your really want to try eating it along with the slice.
I believe these prosciuttos are more moist that the jamon leg that Jaimie produced. Difference is probably attributable to the lard that was applied as advised way back when by an industry professional that shall remain nameless. In fact, some of you will notice that there are small portions of the blocked cuts (and others) that are not totally dried out or firm. I don’t think that means they are not cured. There is so much salt in this meat that it has to be cured. I doubt that aging for any more time would have made a difference since I could not detect any weight/water loss for many months. So, I am not sure about the wisdom of the lard application. Jamie’s leg had no lard on it, more weight loss, and turned out fine.
I sliced some of a blocked piece of meat on my deli slicer and served it with some Manchego cheese and some Manzanilla sherry before dinner last night. Even thinly sliced, this stuff is mighty salty, but enjoyable. I intend to try some of the oddly shaped stuff cut into small pieces in a frittata with some potatoes and mushrooms for breakfast Sunday morning to see how that works.
This brings to a close our prosciutto journey. Not sure that I would do this again if I ever had a leg at my disposal. A little of this product goes a long way.
