Smoked picnic for the cooking pot
Smoked picnic for the cooking pot
Early last week I bought a fresh picnic and asked the butchers to slice it into inch thick slabs and leave the hock in one piece. I cleaned off the saw dust and applied a cure consisting of 2% salt ,.25% cure #1 and about 1.5% sugar and a bit of molassas for a brown sugar flavor. (light brown sugar is 10% molassas). I rubbed the cure into all of the pieces and put them in an enamaled tub and overhauled them every couple of days. Friday night I spread them out to dry in the fridge and yesterday morning I got them out to warm up and dry some more. Them went into the smoker when I got home about 6 and I started an apple wood fire and choked the air supply. I kept the smoke going until about midnight when I went to bed and let the fire tend itsself. This morning I put them in a 170°F oven to bake to 140°F it took neatly 3 hours as they were two deep on the sheet pan. They came out nicely and will make a good meat for a bean pot.
Ross- tightwad home cook
