Print Recipe

CURED LEG OF MIDDLE WHITE PORK

Please click on the image to see enlarged version of the finished recipe.
The curing process takes 8-9 months for optimum results and slithers from one these legs make delicious nibbles with Christmas drinks, served either plain or on little toasts, with or without cornichons and/or onion marmalade. Or a whole home-cured leg makes a very good Christmas present. The ingredients other than the leg of Middle White Pork are easy to acquire and, if you order one of our pork legs for curing, we will give you a length of muslin ‘sleeve’ suitable for the hanging process.
The recipe calls for mixed spices. The photograph shows some of these spices whole but what you need for this recipe are dried spices, ground fairly finely in a food processor or bought in powder form. You don’t need to use all the spices in the list and the proportions are up to you but I have found that a mixture of all six below, in roughly equal proportions, works well.

Instructions

  • Ingredients
    1 Leg of Middle White pig, tunnel boned
    2kg rock salt
    650gms white granulated sugar
    150 gms mixed ground, dried spices – coriander seed, cinnamon, dried ginger, dill, nutmeg, cloves (see comment above)
    Mix the ground spices thoroughly with the salt and sugar. Lay the leg of pork on a large piece of clingfilm and pack the spicy salt mixture into the hole left by the bone. If there is any spare, sprinkle it on the outside of the meat. Wrap the clingfilm round the meat so that it is fully encased and holds any spare salt mixture close to the meat. Leave in a cool, airy place for three weeks.
    After ten days to two weeks, remove all the salt from the bone ‘tunnel’ and the outside and wash both with cold water to ensure there is no salty mixture left. Dry the meat very thoroughly, put it in the muslin ‘sleeve’ supplied and knot both ends firmly (so that no flies can get in). Keep the leg, preferably hanging up (secured with string tied round the knot in the muslin) in a cool, dry place where it cannot be reached by flies – a cellar is idea. It will be cured to perfection after about 8 months but will keep for many months longer if necessary.