Fresh ham -> breakfast sausage?

July 21, 2018 9:07 AM

Hi meat people, I have a fresh, uncured ham that I got when I recently bought 1/2 of a pig from a local farmer. I could go cured or uncured/fresh, and I went for the uncured/fresh. Thing is, I'm not really a ham guy, but I do like my breakfast burritos. Would it be feasible to run it through a meat grinder and make breakfast sausage from it? I've made fresh breakfast sausage before and have my seasonings all dialed in. The ham still has its fatty outer lining. I mean, it's just meat, right? Any advice would be lovely.
posted by rachelpapers to Food & Drink (8 answers total)

You would have ground fresh ham. With fat and herbs/ spices, it gets called sausage. Sounds delicious. Please report back. Or, come visit Maine for expert testing at no charge.
posted by theora55 at 9:17 AM on July 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

I think there's some sort of binding/texture issue getting a sausage end result when starting from ham ... think of canned hams or spam. Hopefully someone more food science-y will come weigh in. I'd just dice and freeze in portions, use like bacon.
posted by Rube R. Nekker at 9:42 AM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

This should work just fine.
posted by STFUDonnie at 9:45 AM on July 21, 2018

It's just pork. Include as much of the outer fat as needed to make up for the leanness of the meat compared to, say, shoulder. Then proceed as usual.
posted by WasabiFlux at 10:20 AM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: think of canned hams or spam

A “fresh ham” is not like a canned ham or Spam. It doesn’t have that pinkish “cured” texture or flavor. It’s just the name for a cut of meat from the hind leg (as opposed to the butt which is inexplicably from the shoulder, or the shoulder which comes from the front leg, sigh).

I think it would be fine for this use although it’s maybe a bit leaner than what most sausage recipes would call for. If you’re making a “crumble” for a burrito you’ll be fine; if you’re making a patty or an encased sausage you’ll just use grind in some extra fat from wherever you can get it.
posted by bcwinters at 10:20 AM on July 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

Best answer: You can do so many things with a fresh ham that sausage almost feels like a waste? It's such a versatile cut to work with! You can certainly turn some of it into sausage, but a nice roast and some souvlaki would be way easier and probably even better.
posted by halation at 10:20 AM on July 21, 2018 [5 favorites]

Best answer: This is a thing you can do, yes. The ham itself probably won't have enough fat to make a quality sausage, so I would supplement it with fatback, probably 20-25 percent.

You could also cook the ham as a fresh roast or part it in to other cuts. A slow cooked ham leg will not taste like cured ham; it's going to taste like pork roast if that's something you like. If you want to make smaller roasts, you can find where the different muscles interface with each other. There's going to be a later of membrane between the muscle groups, and you can trace the membrane with a boning knife to separate them into individual roasts.
posted by backseatpilot at 7:05 PM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks, everyone! I am a singleton so I appreciate the variety of ways I could use up this massive cut of meat. I think I will sausage a bit of it as I have some fatback to supplement, but I will probably cut it up into smaller roasts per backseatpilot's suggestion.
posted by rachelpapers at 7:07 AM on July 22, 2018 [1 favorite]