One of the hams we bought yesterday did not make it to the freezers. I cooked it up this morning.
It was the smallest and it is delicious! Taters and veggies, too, of course.
The quality of product that this German meat curing clan whips out is astounding!
I have to say that if I was pressed, my preference would be a salt cured Virginia style and second would be a Texas smoke cure, but these Germans do a great job, too!
They use a combination of deep brining and then a finish in a smoke house. In other words a combination of my two favorite processes for curing pork.
I assessed our freezer space and returned to the Meijer store at 7AM after I dropped my daughter at work and brought home four more bargain hams. I got one really big one.
BTW, I have looked into this whole meat curing thing for many years, tried some things, but like everything else, there are a zillion ways to to do anything and certain regions have specific tendencies due to what crops grow in the region.
For instance the French will often drop a bottle or two of favored wine into a few hundred gallons of saturated salt water for flavor before curing poultry.
German style old school doesn't use much water when creating a brining solution, they start with beer quite often.
They are both right!