Preserving Meats: Shinkenspeck by Recipe Cottage

SEARCH RECIPES:

LOCATION: Recipes >> Preserving Meats >> Shinkenspeck


	Shinkenspeck

		Schinkenspeck 1 whole fresh pork ham, or pork loins cure, for 10 pounds total: 2 1/2 gallons ice water 8 ounces kosher salt 8 ounces Prague Powder #1 2 1/2 ounces powdered dextrose 2 1/2 ounces ground white pepper 1 1/2 ounces ground juniper berries Remove the skin from the bacon before curing. Spray-pump both the bacon and ham at 10% of their weight with the cure. Then let them cure for 5 to 6 days at 40 F. Lay the bacon slab out on a counter top and fit it around the ham. You may have to trim off parts of the ham where it's too wide and fit such trimmings in places where it is too narrow. Just sprinkle them with unflavored gelatin and they'll stay there after the smoking. When the bacon fits nicely around the ham, sprinkle it with gelation and tie it up like a rolled rib roast. Put the whole thing in a stockinette bag and let it rest in a 135 smokehouse until it gets to 128 internal - just like bacon, but it will take longer because of the greater thickness. Mine took about a day. Then you can smoke it, but not too much. I kept mine at 128 for another day so it would firm up nicely. It was far too thick for my home slicer, so I took it to the butcher, where I had purchased the meat, and let him cut it on his professional grade slicer (and gave him 4 slices for his trouble). I put it in the freezer first, for about 6 hours, so it was easier to slice consistently. I found it fried up best at very low heat in a cast iron skillet. The sugar in it will carmelize and make a mess even at moderate temperatures.