Project Smoke - Ham in a Hurry on Memphis Wood Fire Grill

ham is a hogs leap to immortality for thousands of years smoke masters have cured and smoked fresh pork to transform it into delectable ham we have something a little different in mine for today's program first up ham and a hurry I first experienced this dish at a terrific restaurant in Portland Oregon called the Imperial so why do I call it ham and a hurry well traditional ham a leg of pig takes weeks if not months to cure this ham is made with a pork loin and you cure it and smoke it in a matter of days first the cure starts with a quart of boiling water to that add brown sugar salt and insecure which is a curing salt that contains sodium nitrite sodium nitrite is responsible for that pink color in ham and also those luscious umami flavors next add fennel seed for a touch of sweetness black peppercorns for heat hot pepper flakes for more heat cinnamon sticks cloves star anise a spice from southern China it has a smoky fantasy licorice flavor combine these ingredients and whisk until the sugar salt and curing salt are dissolved add one quart of ice water to shock chill the brine so once the brine is cold because you never want a brine meat and a hot brine take a ladle and pull off about one cup of the brine and pass it through a strainer then use this it's a meat injector push the plunger down draw up some of that brine and plunge the injector deep into the pork loin and inject some of that brine now this is one way we speed up the curing process by brining the meat from the inside out by the way we are using de rock pork it's a heritage breed of pork from a small farm the Midwest remember where your ingredients come from how they're raised matter as much as how you cure and smoke them then place the pork in a large resealable plastic bag and pour the brine mixture into the bag then just sort of fold it to remove the excess air reseal you'll brine the pork for three to four days turn it over once a day and after the second day re inject it with the brine that's all there is to it other duties as assigned really anything and everything ready actually fast forward three days here's the pork loin which has been brined and injected every day and what you want to do is pull it out of the brine to drain it you can see that curing salt the sodium nitrite has started to turn the meat pink then you want to rinse the brine off in a pan of cold water rinse it thoroughly once the ham is rinsed transfer it to a wire rack over a drip pan now blot the pork loin dry on all sides with paper towels then pin two bay leaves to the pork loin with two cloves 1/2 now let the pork loin air dry for two hours in the refrigerator meanwhile let me show you the smoker to smoke the ham in a hurry I'm using a Memphis wood fire grill it's fueled with these hardwood sawdust pellets I'm using Hickory which is the traditional wood for smoking ham in the American South so we'll just place the pellets in the hopper and then set the temperature we want to be working at 225 degrees by now the pork should be dry and ready to go on the smoker so here's the meat and you can see they call it tacky it's a little bit sticky you need that so the smoke will adhere to the pork so just take the pork loin and put it in the pellet grill close the lid we're using a two-step smoking process low and slow at 225 degrees for about two hours then we'll glaze the ham in a hurry with an orange glaze kick up the heat to 350 to finish it let me show you that orange glaze okay the glaze it's a project smoke twist on the traditional orange glaze it starts with fresh orange juice brown sugar butter hot pepper flakes star anise cinnamon stick and bourbon bring the mixture to a boil over a high heat then boil it until thick and syrupy 5 10 minutes that's all there is to it and once the glaze is reduced and thick and syrupy strain it into a bowl I'll just take a taste mmm nice combination of orange whiskey and spice so we use this mixture to base the ham in a hurry for the last stage of smoking it's been two hours well and our ham in a hurry is coming along nicely so what you want to do at this stage is baste it with that orange bourbon glaze then the last stage is that hot smoke so increase the heat to 350 degrees the idea is you want to sear that glaze into the meat that's the beauty of pellet grills you can control the temperature to the precise degree throughout human history ham has been indispensable to human gastronomic happiness did you know that in colonial times the wealth of a man was measured in part by the number of hams hanging in his smokehouse fast-forward 20 minutes beautiful so place the ham on a sheet pan so here's the ham and a hurry you can serve it either hot or you can chill it serve it cold take out the cloves and bay leaves and then let's cut into it okay so you see that beautiful pink color that is the result of the curing salt nice so transfer the slices to a serving plate and this is cinnamon grilled pineapple brush with butter dusted with cinnamon sugar the recipe is on our website last of all you can just drizzle a little more of that orange glaze over the ham over the pineapple let's see how we did hmm it starts with the sweet salty ham flavor but there's so much more the anise tones from the star anise cinnamon little heat from the hot pepper flakes see the pineapple ham and pineapple a marriage made in heaven this one with grilled pineapple the smoked flavor the pineapple smoked flavor of the ham ham in a hurry you've got a winner you

Channel: Memphis Wood Fire Grills

Views: 57,037

Rating: 4.9308643 out of 5

Keywords: project smoke, steven raichlen, pellet grills, memphis grills, memphis wood fire grills, bbq, barbeque, memphis, smoke, grilliong ham, bbq ham recipe, pellet grill ham recipe, pellet grill recipe, smoker recipe

Id: 1fol4U6qzF0

Length: 9min 14sec (554 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 06 2016