Hammin' and Jammin' for T-Day Gifting

I made some gift baskets for two families that were having a household member only Thanksgiving dinner and one family that is having Thanksgiving dinner today because of their work schedule. I injection cured some pork loins for 10 days, then cold smoked them for 12 hours, and lastly baked them to 153°. In the meantime I smoked extra sharp cheddar and pepperjack cheese, and some steelhead trout. Yesterday Mrs ~t~ make rye bread for everyone.





Here is the ham from start to finish











I haven't seen a pork belly in months, so I made some beef bacon from brisket flat. I haven't made this in quite a while

jzadski said:

Looks great, how cool on the brisket bacon. Always like seeing what you are curing up

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It's definitely a lower fat choice than belly bacon but does retain some chew. It sort of reminds me of sneaking a piece of jerky off the smoker or dehydrator and eating it when still hot.

TravelingJ said:

So the injection curing into the pork loin, then cold smoking it, made it ham?

You're a very creative cook. I always enjoy reading these posts and seeing things I'd have never thought of.

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Thanks for the kind words, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Usually, when something other than the rear leg of a hog is cured and smoked it is usually not called ham..., so cured loin products could be called Buckboard Bacon, Pioneer Bacon, Homesteader Bacon, Back Bacon or Peameal Bacon (both in Canada), or Canadian Bacon (in the US). But in all of those examples the loin would be dry cured, or wet cured in a brine before smoking. So, since this loin is injected or "pumped" in ham lingo.... the curing method more closely resembles the method for making a 'city ham'. So the gentleman that perfected this method called it ham, and I agree it's the best term. BTW, I've used the same technique using pork shoulder butt and shoulder picnics.