I wanted to make my own ham for sandwiches, mix with pasta, etc., but didn’t want to make 5 kg (10 lb) that I wouldn’t eat in time!  So I bought a small (1 kg, 2 lb) pork ‘leg steak’, a nice boneless cut from the leg.  I cured the pork in a brown sugar cure containing cloves, allspice and cinnamon, followed by a low-heat roast in the oven, smothered in a brown sugar, mustard seed and apple cider vinegar glaze. The result was richly sweet, slightly salty and spiced. Everyone had ham sandwiches for lunch that week, as well as some pasta carbonara for dinner!

Ingredients

1 kg (2 lb) pork leg meat

The curing brine

1 L (1 qt) water

60 g salt

80 g dark brown sugar

10 g pink salt (cure #1)

1 garlic clove, minced

1 Tb whole cloves

1 Tb whole allspice

1 cinnamon stick, broken in small pieces

The glaze

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

2 Tb apple cider vinegar

2 Tb whole mustard seeds

For the curing brine, place all ingredients into a saucepan and heat to simmering, stirring to dissolve the salts and sugar.  Let cool and refrigerate until chilled. Cure the pork for about 24 h (1 day per kg or 2 lb) in the fridge, and then rinse with water, pat dry and rub with the glaze, retaining about half the glaze.  Bake in a 95 C (205 F) oven for 1-2 h, or until the internal temperature reaches 68 C (155 F), replacing the glaze about 2 times throughout the cooking. Let cool and then store in the fridge for up to 1 week. Enjoy!