Ham is to choose the best quality pork leg, after a complicated process, patience and wait for three to five years, a thick flavor of the best ham to the table.

1: Spanish ham

Spanish people love ham, where ham is like a national treasure to make Spaniards proud, whether it is Madrid's shopping malls, Barcelona's street markets, or Seville's flavor of the tavern, can eat this delicious. In the Spanish ham in the top to be counted in the Iberian ham, it is one of Europe's nine legendary ingredients.

This ham is made from black-haired pigs, which eat only wild acorns, live an elegant and healthy life, and are reared for about two years. In the spring, farmers will bury these slaughtered pigs in sea salt, so that they can be fully flavored and then re-cured for about two months, and then finally put them in the cellar to dry out for about a year before they are considered a finished product.

Iberian ham is moderately sweet and salty, flavorful and tender, with a beautiful marbling that makes it look like a work of art, and thinly sliced ham is a perfect accompaniment to wine.

2: Parma Ham

Italy is also a country that produces a lot of ham, and almost every city has its own signature, but the most famous is still the Parma ham from the province of Parma in northern Italy.

It's made from the traditional Italian pig breeds Large White Landrance and Duroc, which are raised on the trimmings and milk drippings of the local Parma cheese.

When these pigs reach about 150 kilograms, they are sent to be slaughtered, and after they are killed, they are soaked in special salt for more than a month, then air-dried to squeeze the moisture out of the leg meat, and then wrapped in salt and pork fat mixed with black pepper, both to achieve the effect of curing, but also to avoid contaminating the ham with bacteria during the process, and the Parma hams have to be cured in this way for about 20 months before they can be put on the market.

3: Jinhua ham

In the domestic mention of ham the first thought is Jinhua ham, Jinhua ham is made of Jinhua specialties of the two-headed crow, this pig was born with the head and tail of the dark, the body of the pink and white, and the two-headed crow skin and bone thin, the proportion of meat fat is appropriate, and the hind leg and fat, muscle tender, with the production of a good prerequisite for ham.

On the other hand, the production process of Jinhua ham is also very special, the fat proper two-headed crows after slaughter in Jinhua local temperature suitable place for curing, washing and sunbathing is to be sufficient sunshine, fermentation temperature and humidity should also be appropriate in order to let the ham in the process of air-drying in the normal brewing.

After the rigorous process of curing the Jinhua ham, the skin is bright and colorful, the whole leg is as long and round as a pipa, and the color is dark red and transparent, and the meat is tender and flavorful in the mouth, which makes it a good ingredient to eat raw or to add to the dishes.

Expanded Information:

The ham is graded and divided into special grade, grade one, grade two, grade three. It is necessary for people who know what they are doing to insert the sign to judge the ham's good and bad. The sign is made of bamboo, like a cone. There are three different parts of a ham, and each stick is placed in a different part of the ham. Depending on the location, it is divided into the upper, middle and lower three tags.

The requirements for the special grade leg: the claw should be curved, the ankle should be thin, the leg should be shaped like a leaf, the thickness of the fat should not be more than two centimeters, and all the three signatures should have a good flavor.

Requirements for Grade 1 legs: two of the three tags should have a good aroma, but none of the three tags should have an odor. Requirements for the second grade leg: there should be no off-flavor. Requirements for the third grade leg: one stick should have a bad odor.

Specialty hams and first-class hams have red rings, second-class hams have yellow rings, and third-class hams do not have rings. All three kinds of hams are stamped with the ink of five times (the name of traditional Chinese medicine).

Reference:

Ham - Baidu Encyclopedia