Today Starts Christmas Hams

Today Starts the Christmas Hams

 

This morning I will start the December Ritual of curing the whole leg,
hide on, Christmas Hams. The first four legs should arrive this morning
if Sysco does its job. (which is not a given) This was one of the more
profitable recipes I have ever developed for the catering company. Fresh
Pork leg with the hide on (but hair removed) come it the day after the
kill floor had them. Wash them and mix up the Honey Maple Cure, pump the
meat at 15 percent by weight and then cover in the cure in the walk in
for the correct amount of days. Hauling over once per day until the
final day the go out to the smoker for a relax vacation in heavy smoke
for the better part of a day. It sure does come out nice and it
impresses the companies that hire us when they see that big whole leg
sitting on the meat spike and being carved live. The price of cured ham
is still up pretty high compared to pork, it allows us that extra margin
of profit that our competitors can not find in their menus. Every time we
sell a couple of them I can not help but think, this gets us one step
closer to buying our competitors stuff at the bankruptcy auction. Going
to end up doing about 16 between now and Christmas and another 12 before
the end of the winter season here. Making money with food is about the
value added, by backward integrating the curing process we bring the
cured meat margin into our own bank accounts.

Chef Bob Ballantyne

The Cowboy and The Rose Catering

Grand Junction, Colorado, USA