Lamb Prosciutto

I've been wanting to make a pork prosciutto for a while now, but it's just too big for me and Chris to eat on our own. When I saw a recipe for lamb prosciutto in a cookbook, I knew immediately what I was going to make next. I was not disappointed. I used too different dry cures on separate pieces and both came out wonderful. Once I sliced it up, we used it to make a wonderful pizza with a pistachio pesto sauce with some fresh smoked mozzarella, shallots and other goodies on top. For the lamb, I purchased a boneless lamb shoulder. It naturally separated into two nice size pieces. For each cure recipe, you weigh your lamb piece and then calculate the rest of the ingredients based on percentage weight.

Try it, you'll like it.

Ingredients:

Dry Rub #1

100% Boneless leg of lamb

2.5% Kosher salt

0.25% Cure #2

0.75% Black Pepper

1.00% sugar

0.50% crushed fresh mint

0.50% garlic powder

0.50% Turmeric

0.50% Paprika

Dry Rub #2

100% Boneless leg of lamb

2.5% Kosher salt

0.25% Cure #2

0.75% Black Pepper

1.00% sugar

0.50% Cardamom

0.50% Curry Powder

0.50% Mustard Powder

0.50% Marjoram

1 beef bung diameter 4 inches (I get mine from sausagemaker.com)

Steps:

1. Weigh lamb and calculate the spices for your selected dry rub cure.

2. Completely cover your lamb in the dry cure. When completely covered, vacuum seal the lamb for curing.

Rubbed, wrapped and ready to refrigerate.

3. Place the bag(s) in the refrigerator for 3 weeks to cure. Flip the bags every 5 days.

4. After 3 weeks take the lamb out of the bag and rinse and dry the meat.

5. Rinse the beef bung and cut the bung so that the first will fit into it and leave some extra bung to be able to tie a knot. If making two pieces, you should be able to use the remaining piece of bung to wrap the smaller piece of lamb.

6. Stuff the lamb into the beef bung. If you have issues fitting it, trim the lamb so it fits. Any trimming, fry up and enjoy. Tie a knot at the end of the bung.

7. Weigh the lamb once again. This weight will be the baseline so you can tell when it has hung to dry long enough.

8. Hang in the drying chamber for 6 weeks, or until it has lost 30% of its weight.