by jamonify

A whole Iberian Ham or trimmed and packaged Iberian Ham?

Published : 06/30/2019 08:15:37
Categories : Iberico Acorn fed Ham, pure Pata Negra. Rss feed

A whole Iberian Ham or trimmed and packaged Iberian Ham?

What is better to buying a whole Iberian Ham or trimmed and packaged?

How many times we rule out buying a whole Iberian ham because we are not consuming it in a short period of time, we do not know how to cut it, or it dries out during summer?

 

The best solution to avoid all these difficulties is to purchase it already hand cut and vacuum packaged.

 

A professional artisan can obtain 15% or 20% more output trimming an Iberian ham than us cutting the same ham at our home. This way we assure nothing from the ham will be wasted and you get more value from the product.

 

Whole Iberian ham, how to preserve and consume it

To store a whole Iberian ham you will need that the room temperature of the storage area should be less than 20 degrees Celsius, the ideal temperature to keep properly an Iberian ham is between 10º and 15º Celsius. This way the ham will not “sweat”, another important aspect is to avoid direct sunlight on the Iberian ham (this is very important).

 

Other conditions that matter are: to protect the ham from insects, direct light and to keep the storage area ventilated and humidity of the area below 65%.

 

The ham should be hanged in a vertical position from the paw. Once you begin trimming the ham the best place is a ham stand keeping the same conditions aforementioned.

 

Trimming an Iberian ham is much more than cutting is half art half skill, if you want to try to learn how to trim an Iberian you should have some grace, basic notions skills and lots of enthusiasm, beyond that you should get a good ham stand, an excellent knife and sharpened utensils.

When you are slicing ham it is really important to master the ham trimming techniques as the resulting difference on the flavour is very big.


Once you begin trimming a ham, it will start to lose some properties so our recommendation is to eat daily some ham and consume it in less than a month in order to avoid dryness.

 

The ham slices should be eaten on the same day they were trimmed off the ham, otherwise they get dry and oxidize.

 

The best storage method to keep the Iberian ham in optimal conditions is to save the fat pieces you trim when you are cutting the ham for the first time, and after you have trimmed or carved the slices you are going to eat, you should carve some fat from the fat pieces you have trimmed and spread it over the open part of the ham, later you will cover the ham with the fat from the first layer and after we will wrap the ham with a cotton cloth. This way we make sure the ham will “breath” and it will be preserved in optimal conditions.

 

Shall we buy the Iberian ham trimmed in slices and packaged?

The main advantage of buying a ham trimmed and packaged is as we have already mentioned a professional artisan trimming will yield more than 20% output and the slices will be the same thickness and size.

 

It is important to distinguish between a trimmed ham with a knife by an artisan or the slices cut with a ham slicer.

 

The Iberian ham trimmed with a knife has more flavour and a very intense scent and it is the perfect way to taste it, using a ham slicer the heat of the cutting blades burns the fat.

Knife trimming preserves the layers of fat and no flavours or scents are lost. Besides trimming the ham with a knife allows you to savour the 4 main flavours within an acorn Iberian ham.

 

When we vacuum packed these ham slices, we can store them in the fridge and consume them whenever we want, knowing that vacuum sealed ham is perfectly preserved and will keep all its flavour, texture and freshness.

 

For all these reasons more and more consumers are choosing Iberian ham slices hand trimmed and vacuum sealed.

Products link
Products link
Products link

Share this content

You must be register

Clic here to register

Add a comment