Think Like a Chef - Duck Ham?

[MMRuth]

Has anyone tried this recipe? I made this yesterday - let it cure for about 30 hrs and it much more resembles carpaccio than it does the cured look of the duck ham in the photograph - or prosciutto, which it is also supposed to resemble.

Duck confit is in the oven now - hope it turns out better ...

[HeelsSoxHound]

you can also hang in the fridge-- clear the bottom shelf, wrap in butcher paper, cross hatch with butcher string, tie a hanging string from the rack, and hang. if you cure for awhile, you'll eventually end up with a drier, more ham like product-- although it's still not going to be as dry as pork prosciutto. if you want to shave it, you'll need to chill it pretty heavily first--that'll help to firm it up. then, just use a REALLY sharp knife, since i presume you don't have a commercial slicer in your kitchen! good luck...

[MikeG]

That sounds more like a recipe for duck "gravlax" (which ties in with your carpaccio comment) than anything prosciutto-like.

One very possible issue is that so much food photography has become completely divorced from reality. It's not at all impossible that duck prosciutto or even pork prosciutto was used because it looks more like someone's idealized conception of what the dish looks like rather than what it actually looks like. It might like trying to get your whipped-cream frosted cake to look like the one in the photo without realizing that they actually used hairsprayed, reconstituted mashed potato flakes instead of cream.;)

[HeelsSoxHound]

i'd have to agree with cheryl-- you're not going to hurt it by curing it for longer... and hanging it is essential. just make sure you have something underneath it to catch any drips...
as far as other recipes, it's been awhile, but i seem to remember his ratio for reduction times was a little faster than what my stove and attention could manage without burning.

[MMRuth]

OK - so right now I have the breast just wrapped up in Saran in the fridge - I removed the salt mixture - so, do I hang it w/o any curing mixture, or mix up some more and wrap it up somehow and hang it? Thanks so much.

PS - hanging meat - this will drive my dog nuts!

[cheryl_h]

When I've cured pork, I remove it from the cure and hang it up to dry au naturel. You need good air circulation to get as much moisture out of it as possible. I have a room with rafters across a cathedral ceiling, that's where I hang my meats. The cats look up with longing, but they're not sufficiently suicidal to try climbing up and walking the rafters. When we made a ham which was hanging for several months, we hung a paper shopping bag around it to catch the oily drips. You get some strange looks from visitors when they see a ham hanging from the ceiling.

[MMRuth]

Thanks so much - this will be a challenge in my NYC apt - "curing room"! I'll see what I come up with - I guess the bathroom is not a good idea ... too bad I don't have an airing cupboard in lieu of a washer/dryer - that might have done the trick.

[cheryl_h]

The recipes I've seen for duck prosciutto call for a hanging time of about 7 days or longer. Perhaps you need to air dry it for the moisture to evaporate?

[HeelsSoxHound]

where did you cure it? did you hang it to help it dry? i, too, have had some trouble with tom's recipes in that book-- trust your instincts, though, and you can usually tweak it back to what it should be.

[MMRuth]

You cure it in a mixture of sugar and salt, tightly wrapped in saran, in the refrigerator for 24 hours. I think this is the first time that I've run into difficulty with his recipes - I've made quite a few things. Any particular ones to be wary of - and any other suggestions re: this duck ham? TIA