To slice country ham thin, cook it and chill it first, cut it off the bone in large sections, then shave each section across the grain with a long, sharp knife into slices so thin you can almost see through them. Cold ham slices far more cleanly than warm ham, and thin slices are the whole point: country ham is salty, and a paper-thin slice carries the flavor without overwhelming it.
A Southern country ham is a different thing from a pink, glazed spiral-cut ham. It is dry-cured, firm and intensely savory, and it asks for a different kind of knife work.
What country ham is
Wikipedia describes country ham as “a variety of heavily salted ham preserved by curing and often, but not always, by smoking,” and gives its place of origin as Virginia. The hams are salt-cured for one to three months and then aged “for several months to years,” depending on their fat content. Smithfield ham is one type; North Carolina’s salt-and-pepper ham is a style that is not smoked.
All that salt and time make a dense, deeply savory ham. As Alton Brown’s country ham recipe puts it, “country ham is quite salty, so thin slicing is mandatory.”
Before the knife: soak, scrub, simmer
Check the label first and follow it. The steps below are for a whole uncooked ham, which must be cooked before it is eaten and usually soaked first.
Scrub. An aged country ham can carry mold on its surface. Scrub it off under running water with a stiff brush; Alton Brown’s and America’s Test Kitchen’s recipes both call for this step.
Soak. Soaking draws out some of the salt. America’s Test Kitchen soaks hams aged 6 to 12 months for about 36 hours and hams aged over a year for three days, changing the water at least once a day; it skips the soak for hams under six months old. Use a cooler or a stockpot large enough to keep the ham covered, and keep it cold while it soaks.
Simmer gently. Cover the ham with fresh water and bring it to the barest simmer, never a rolling boil. The Splendid Table’s excerpt from Merle Ellis’s Great American Meat Book warns, “Don’t let the ham boil - it will toughen.” An uncooked ham is a whole cut of pork, and the CDC’s safe minimum for whole cuts of pork is 145°F followed by a 3-minute rest, so cook until the thickest part, away from the bone, reaches that temperature.
Trim. Once the ham is cool enough to handle, peel off the skin and trim the fat down to a thin, even layer.
Chill it before slicing
This is the step that makes thin slicing possible. A warm ham is soft and tears; a cold one is firm and holds together under the blade.
America’s Test Kitchen lets the ham cool in its cooking liquid, wraps it tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerates it for at least eight hours before slicing. Plan around that. A ham cooked on December 23 slices well for a Christmas Eve or Christmas morning table.
Country ham can be served hot, cold or at room temperature. The Splendid Table’s excerpt suggests serving it in “paper-thin slices” any of those ways. Slice it cold either way; if you want it warm, warm the slices briefly afterward.
Take the ham off the bone in sections
A whole ham is far too large for an everyday cutting board, so do not try to shave it on the bone. Set it on a large carving board or a rimmed sheet pan with a damp towel underneath.
Find the bone by feel. Cut down to it along one side of the ham and then work around it with the tip of the knife, freeing one large, boneless section. Repeat on the other side. Each section has its own grain; look for the fine parallel lines of the muscle fibers on the cut face.
Wrap the sections you are not slicing now and keep them cold. The bone, with the meat still clinging to it, goes into a pot of beans, greens or soup; America’s Test Kitchen uses the hock for bean soup and saves the cooking liquid for greens, rice or soup.
Slice it paper-thin
Move one section to a smaller board. A WONAMU. bamboo cutting board at 12 × 9 inches is the right size for a single section and the stack of slices that comes off it, and its perimeter juice groove keeps any moisture from the cold ham on the board.
Turn the section so the knife will cut across the grain. Use the longest, thinnest knife you have: a slicing knife, a ham knife, or a long chef’s knife with a fresh edge. A short knife forces a sawing motion, and sawing tears thin slices.
Hold the meat with a claw grip, fingertips tucked back, and draw the knife through in one long stroke from heel to tip, letting the weight of the blade do the cutting. The grip is explained in knife grips for beginners. Aim for slices about a sixteenth of an inch thick. Lay them flat and slightly overlapping as you go so they do not stick together.
If the slices start to tear, the ham has warmed or the knife has dulled. Put the section back in the refrigerator for twenty minutes, or give the knife a few strokes on a honing rod. Slicing cured meat thin follows the same rules, as covered in how to slice prosciutto and salami for a board.
Serving
Try thin country ham tucked into small split biscuits, with a little butter or mustard. It also works folded loosely on a platter beside cheese and fruit, or laid over eggs on Christmas morning; ideas for that table are in a Christmas morning breakfast board.
A little goes a long way. Slice in batches as the platter empties rather than all at once, so the slices stay moist.
Leftovers and cleanup
Refrigerate sliced and unsliced ham within two hours of serving, the CDC’s limit for perishable food at room temperature. Keep it tightly wrapped so it does not dry out. Small trimmings and scraps can be chopped into biscuits, grits, pasta or a pot of greens.
Wash the board in hot water with dish soap, rinse, and dry it with a towel, then stand it on edge to finish drying. Do not leave the slicing board unwashed overnight.
The short version
Check the label. If uncooked, scrub off the mold, soak it to draw out salt, simmer it gently to 145°F followed by a 3-minute rest, then trim the skin and fat.
Chill it for at least eight hours. Cut it off the bone in large sections, move one section at a time to a smaller board, and shave it across the grain with a long knife in single strokes, about a sixteenth of an inch thick. Serve it in biscuits, and save the bone for beans.
❋
The WONAMU. bamboo cutting board — 12 × 9 inches, bamboo, with a perimeter juice groove and a cotton care cloth in the box — is available on Amazon.
Designed by nature.
