Many of us are accustomed to buying ham in modern hypermarkets or butcher's shops, but at home you can make a much healthier and more natural product without even having any special talent or culinary experience.
Classics or innovation
Ham is a product made from pitted pieces of meat with the addition of salt and spices, which will be subject to further processing: smoking, boiling or drying. Initially, people learned how to make ham with one goal in mind - to keep the meat fit for consumption for as long as possible. Therefore, various recipes for ham have been around for many years, they came to us from ancient times and took root very well, acquiring more and more new outlines, thanks to modern progress and the development of technology.
For many of us, ham is a direct daily guest at the dinner table, be it a sandwich, ham and eggs, or pizza. And if earlier ham was made only from pork, namely from its back, now there are quite a few options for its preparation - from duck, chicken, turkey, pork, beef, boiled, smoked, baked, etc., and this fact is not may not please the troublesome hostesses. Therefore, if you have not yet tried cooking ham yourself, then it is highly recommended to try out some completely uncomplicated recipe.
Boiled chicken ham
You can use only breast in this recipe, so the calorie content of the product at the output will certainly be lower, but as for the taste, then of course a piece of ham will be juicier, which was cooked with the addition of fatty parts of chicken - thighs.
Required Ingredients:
- chicken thighs - 500 grams;
- chicken fillet - 500 grams;
- food gelatin - 1 tablespoon;
- garlic - 3-4 cloves;
- nutmeg - on the tip of a teaspoon;
- pepper mixture - 1/4 teaspoon;
- salt - 1/4 teaspoon.
Cooking ham step by step:
- Cut boneless chicken breasts into small cubes, cut the thighs, remove the skin, bones, and also cut into cubes. If there is fat in the thighs, then add that too, so the ham will turn out to be more tender.
- Peel the garlic, chop finely with a knife or pass through a press and add to the minced meat.
- Season with salt, add nutmeg and a mixture of ground peppers.
- The resulting minced meat must be left well marinated with spices for at least a couple of hours. If possible, it is better to put the plate in the refrigerator for the whole night, and in the morning start the second part of cooking the ham.
- After the meat is saturated with all the flavors and salted well, add the gelatin. Pour it in gradually, constantly stirring the pieces of meat, so that the gelatin crystals are distributed as evenly as possible throughout the mass.
- Take a sleeve or a baking bag, put the prepared minced meat and roll the sausage into the desired shape. Try to leave as few air bubbles as possible inside, and press the meat itself tightly against the piece.
- In order to maintain the required shape and exclude the ingress of liquid into the product, it is recommended to wrap it tightly with cling film on top, and then fix everything tightly with a thick thread. When you remove the tourniquet, the sausage should have imitations of grooves - just like on convenience stores.
- Put a pot of water on the fire and boil. Dip the rolled ham into boiling water and cook over medium heat for about an hour with the lid closed.
- After the specified time has elapsed, remove the finished product and wait for it to cool completely. It is only when the ham is cold that it can be removed from the film, cut into slices and enjoy the excellent taste.
Advice: if it is possible to cook ham in a natural casing, then it is better, of course, to make a "real" sausage.
Ham in a bottle
When choosing chicken for this recipe, stop at a home-made laying hen, and it is advisable that it is not subjected to heat treatment with cold (freezing), since the broth from such a product will not be as transparent as from fresh poultry. In principle, you can choose not only the whole carcass, but take certain parts of it - breast, thighs or other.
To cook ham you will need:
- small chicken - 1-1, 2 kg;
- gelatin - 15-20 grams;
- greens of garlic - a few twigs;
- water - 2.5 liters;
- salt, herbs, bay leaves, black peppercorns - to taste.
Step-by-step cooking:
- Wash and dry the chicken well beforehand. Cut it into portions so that it is convenient to place in a saucepan.
- Boil water in a saucepan, salt, put bay leaf, peppercorns and send chicken pieces to cook until tender for 30-40 minutes over medium heat.
- During cooking, it is necessary to periodically remove the resulting foam, since the ham will need to be poured with a transparent broth in order to achieve a spectacular appearance.
- When the chicken has boiled down a little, take out 500 ml of broth. When the broth has cooled, dissolve the gelatin in it.
- Wash the greens of the garlic, chop finely.
- Cool the finished chicken, separate the flesh from the bones, remove the skin, disassemble into small pieces.
- Mix in a deep bowl with garlic, salt, herbs and taste.
- Take a plastic bottle - for the specified amount of products, you will need a 1.5 liter bottle. Cut off the top of the plastic packaging so that the prepared mixture can be folded.
- Then pour the gelatin diluted in the broth so that the minced chicken is completely covered, and send it to the refrigerator for 10 - 12 hours.
- After the specified time, free the ham from the bottle by cutting the plastic with a sharp knife or scissors.
The finished ham should look like the photo below.
Chicken ham with egg and cheese
Such a dish can be safely served at the home table as the main one. Firstly, its appearance will be very appetizing, and secondly, what can be more satisfying than meat, and even skillfully prepared by a talented hostess.
Note to the chef: it is recommended to purchase homemade eggs, since the yolk in such a product has a rich orange color, which will look more impressive in the finished dish.
Required Ingredients:
- minced chicken - 600 grams;
- chicken egg - 2 pieces;
- onions - 1 head;
- hard cheese of any kind - 100 grams;
- garlic - 3-4 cloves;
- mayonnaise / sour cream - 1 tablespoon;
- bread crumbs - 50 grams;
- dill / parsley - a few branches;
- salt, a mixture of peppers, seasonings for meat - to taste.
Step by step recipe:
- Mix the minced chicken with chopped onions, or if the minced meat is made independently from chicken breast, for example, which is undoubtedly better than the purchased minced meat, then pass the peeled onions through a meat grinder immediately along with the meat.
- Beat 1 chicken egg with salt and pour into a bowl of minced meat. Season with pepper, if you need to add more salt and add the desired seasonings. Mix everything thoroughly.
- Peel the garlic and pass through a press or crush well with a knife on a cutting board.
- Add breadcrumbs and garlic to the minced meat.
- It is recommended to beat the resulting mass well so that the ham turns out to be softer and more juicy. To do this, put the minced meat in a plastic bag so that the pieces do not scatter throughout the kitchen, and leave it on the countertop several times.
- Prepare the filling: hard-boil the egg and leave to cool in cold water. Grate the hard cheese, chop the herbs finely, peel the egg, cut into cubes and mix all the ingredients with mayonnaise or sour cream.
- Cut off a large piece of baking paper and brush it with any oil - olive, butter - if desired. First spread the minced meat evenly, and the filling on top, leaving the edges empty by about 2-3 cm.
- Now, grasping the edges of the paper, form a roll and roll it evenly on all sides.
- It will be necessary to bake it along with the paper so that the product bakes evenly, all the juice remains inside and a golden brown crust forms, so the ends of the paper must be tightly fixed.
- Send the future ham into an oven preheated to 180 degrees.
- After 50-60 minutes, the dish is ready. Remove it from the oven and let cool for 10-15 minutes. Then remove the paper and enjoy the incomparable taste.
