In case you weren't aware, Mr X and I were lucky enough to source our meat this year from a small "farm" - My Dad! It was our first year doing this (for both us and my Dad) so we weren't really sure how everything was going to turn out. For my Dad's part, the animals were raised well and happy so subsequently the meat was of incredibly good quality. Mr X and I really didn't have a great idea of how we wanted our meat processed at butchering time. So we did the best we could on that part - we had the majority of our meat left as is, but cut up in the traditional manner.
Since we received all this meat we've spent a lot of time experimenting with it.
Here are a couple of examples:
Ham. We ordered our hams cured - the only things that we had cured. Next year we plan to cure at least one of them ourselves. Anyway, we decided to then enhance our ham further by smoking it on our Traeger and glazing it with a maple-y glaze.
Honeybaked hams are delicious. I honestly wasn't sure that our little ham would measure up. But with the superior meat, a good cure, and Mr X's expertise, this ham was even better than a Honeybaked ham.
Next up - Bacon.
We had the butcher leave the pork belly alone so that we could try making our own bacon.
This is what we did:
1) Cured it with a mix of curing salt and maple sugar for 7 days.
2) Washed the cure off and then let it "rest" in the refrigerator for a day.
3) Smoked it for 3 hours using applewood chips.
4) Let it cool and rest in the refrigerator overnight.
5) Ate it for breakfast.
It was the best bacon I've ever eaten. I'm not kidding. So delicious!
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