Wednesday 7 December 2011

I need a much bigger bag

The most important task this morning was to nip over to the Butchers to pick up the leg of pork I had ordered last Saturday.

I turned up and was shown a complete leg at a price that was too good to be true. A man with a very sharp knife in his hand advised that there was a considerable discount if I bought the whole leg …

… so I did. 15 minutes later I was walking out with the boned leg plus bones and trimmings in a separate doggy bag. I am going to end up with an absolutely enormous Prosciutto as the leg weighs a little over 13 lbs, allowing for moisture loss it is still going to be a hefty ham…

… I am also going to need considerably more salt than the 12 kilos 30% bought home a couple of days ago.

Last year’s experiment used a 3 lb shoulder joint which took about 10 kgs of salt and needed salting for about 10 days. This year I am looking at a salting period of at least 40 days using the recommended metric of 3 to 4 days per lb. I haven’t a clue how much salt I will need but I am guessing that I am looking at 20 kilos to adequately pack the leg with a minimum of an inch of salt between the meat and the sides of the box.

The leg is now sitting in the fridge whilst I buy all local stocks of salt.

On the work front I finished the critical piece of work that was dumped on me I was given on Friday. I have fired this across the Atlantic where it was received without even a murmur…

… Let’s hope that is a good sign.

Right how big are the bags of salt at Tesco?

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