Advice on a Ham recipe please

[BrewDaddy]

I have a package in the freezer that has 3 one pound chunks of pork shoulder... I had another that I cubed up and have been working my way through it with my yummy chili verde....

I want to take at least two of these and do a home cured brine and turn them into small hams for Thanksgiving. I've done a Canadian Bacon before using lean and tender brined pork loin, but this time I've got some tougher meat to work with.

I am using this video/recipe as a guide (I didn't know you could use celery for the nitrates - go figure):

"Easter Hamlet - Home-Cured, Fresh Holiday Ham Recipe"


So my thinking is to pretty much follow this recipe, but because of the tougher cut of meat just do a low and slow heat for 2 hours or so, then pick back up with the recipe from there. Give the pork a chance to tenderize before I start the actual 'cooked ham' part of it.

Does this sound like I'm on the right track?

brew

[paisley]

Wonder why the slash work is not done before the brine?

[Deleted]

Fascinating! I did not know that about celery, and I'll be giving it a try. Not that we eat a lot of cured meat, but I do occasionally use Morton Tender Quick, which contains nitrates/sulfites. Or is it sulfate...?

ANYway, paisley, he probably doesn't score it before the brine to avoid too much salt infiltrating the meat.

BrewDaddy, I think that the brine should be enough to tenderize your meat, but you know the cuts you have better than I.

LOL @ his comment to remove the cloves, all the while he is glazing the cut that holds cloves.

[BrewDaddy]

Since I had concerns about whether or not these small 1 pound pork butt chunks would cook to a tender state using the temps called for with the ham, I seasoned one (non-ham version) up last night and put it into the oven. I'll say that eventually, it came out fine...

By eventually, I mean I had to fuss with it quite a bit... The recipe I was more or less wingin' called for starting out at 400 when it goes in, then drop to 325 and let it go 25-30 minutes, which I did. USDA recommendation for pork is 145 these days (150 for medium) so that is what I was shooting for.

When I checked the temp the first time after 25 minutes I was getting temps in the 165 - 190 range - YIKES! So I pulled it out and let it rest for about 10 minutes, then when I sliced into it I could see a LOT of bright red - this thing wasn't even close to done in the middle.

So back into the oven it went for another 10 minutes, rested again, supposedly temp was just fine... When I sliced it up it looked okay, but now I was paranoid about whether it was cooked or not...

I threw the slices I intended to eat into the skillet for a minute or two just to be sure...

End result was that yes, these pork butts cook in a reasonable amount of time and come out nicely tender, so I'll plan on proceeding with the ham recipe for Thanksgiving and with any luck, will do a trial run this weekend rather than go All-In for turkey day.

I think the problem with the oven is that at higher temps, the small size has the heat bearing down on what is cooking that unless you are careful you can get false readings.

bd