I baked an uncooked, cured, non-smoked Smithfield ham yesterday. These are
labeled "Ready to Cook" and are supposed to be cooked to an internal temp.
of 148F. After a fair amount of thought about the risk of dry ham and
endogenous laziness I decided not to do it in the Weber Smokey Mtn. I
followed Alton Brown's recipe, paraphrased below, without the cookies.

Score ham through skin to create 2 inch skin patches. Place a shank half ham
cut side down on baking pan. Put small amount of water in pan to cover the
cut side. Tent the ham tightly with heavy duty foil, & cook for 3 to 4 hours
or until the internal temperature at the deepest part of the meat registers
130 degrees F. You're basically baking in a steam environment. Remove ham
and pull away the diamonds of skin and all but a thin layer of fat. Brush on
a coat of mustard, and sprinkle surface generously with brown sugar. Return
to oven at 350F and bake uncovered to internal temp of 148F, as per
instructions. Rest for one half hour before consuming.

The ham was somewhat marginal. Ham taste was so so, with no smokey taste at
all. It has since occured to me that probably no raw cured ham is going to
have smoke flavor unless someone includes some liquid smoke in the cure.

Swertz commented yesterday that, "The Smithfield hams I buy here are "in
natural juices". Which is the best, least adulterated ham you can buy. The
ham may not weigh more then 7% greater than it's green weight." This raises
the following question.

Does Smithfield sell "Smithfield Hams" from different distributors
throughout the country? My ham was "25% water added", not 7%, and of
marginal quality. I know Cook's hams are now a Smithfield owned product.
They no longer produce uncooked cured hams. Maybe one shouldn't buy ham just
because of the label "Smithfield". Is the Smithfield in Texas from a
different producer than the one from a vendor in Northern California? Is
there a good uncooked cured ham?.

Kent
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,always anal, searching for the right paper