Hamon
While one can always grab one in the supermarket, it’s always better to make it yourself. Preparing hamon, yourself will ensure that your food is free from any harmful preservatives. Also, you can season your hamon the way you and your family like it.
Preparing and cooking hamon takes time and effort, so you have to plan out when you should start so that you have the perfect dish at noche buena. The following recipe would tell you how to make your own hamon:
Ingredients
3 kilos (pigue or hita) pig’s leg without the bones but with the skin and fat intact
9 tbsps sugar
8 tbsps salt
2 tsps prague powder (instead of saltpeter or salitre)
Pineapple juice
Procedure:
1. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl.
2. Rub these seasonings well into the meat. Set aside the seasoned meat in a glass bowl. Cover and refrigerate for one day.
3. Tie the ham tightly into a ball with string. Remove/Drain the meat juices that were left in the glass bowl and set aside for injecting.
4. Using a huge syringe, inject the flavored meat juice all around the ham in small doses.
5. Set the ham aside in the glass bowl (covered) inside the refrigerator. Repeat the injecting process every day until no juices remain.
6. Keep the ham inside a plastic bag in the freezer for a month or more.
To cook the ham:
1. Add enough pineapple juice to cover the ham at about 3/4’s level (not quite to the top of the ham).
2. Add the following: brown sugar (just enough to sweeten the pineapple juice mixture), bay leaves, crushed garlic.
3. Cook the mixture in a heavy, Teflon-type pot over a low fire until the meat becomes tender. Watch out that the meat doesn’t get burned. You can prevent over-browning by turning the meat from time to time.
4. Cool the meat and slice into pieces.
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