Lamb Prosciutto

If you say "prosciutto" to someone, automatically the first thing they think of is a cured pig leg. In reality prosciutto could be ageneric term for a cured leg of any animal. It could be pig, goat; also known as a "violino di capra", or in my case, lamb, which would be "prosciutto d'agnello". I can't claim to have thought of this preparation first, the idea was put into my head when I saw a portion of a show on TV filed at Salumi in Seattle. They have a lamb prosciutto, and I said , "why couldn't I do that?". Well, I could. And I did. You really have to like lamb though, the curing process intensifies the flavor, so if you're not a lamb lover, you won't like this probably.

I've made this with a bone-in leg of lamb, but I prefer it boneless, it's a little easier to slice, and a little easier to handle.

Lamb Prosciutto

Ingredient	Quantity(g)	% of Meat
Lamb leg	1845	N/A
Salt	70	3.8
White sugar	55	3
Black pepper	27	1.5
Cure #2	4.6	0.25
Fresh rosemary	19	1
Garlic powder	6	0.3

I started with a packaged boneless leg of lamb from Costco.








This is the "outside" portion of the leg. You can see there is a little bit of fat, not much, which means not much trimming is necessary.







The inside of the leg. The boning process mangles the meat pretty well, but it sure is convenient not to have to do it myself!







I trimmed just a little bit of fat off, but mostly removed what felt like a slimy sinew that was on top of the fat. On the top right of the picture is a little pile of all that was removed. Not much as you can see.






The fresh rosemary in the foreground and the rest of the stuff in the back. I chopped up the rosemary by hand really fine, and then mixed it in with the other cure ingredients. Smelled great!






Here are all the cure ingredients, ready to be mixed up really well and applied massaging them into the meat.








I like to use a big container that can fit the meat in, and then I apply the rub. This makes sure that all the calculated amount of salt and curing salts actually ends up on the meat instead of on the counter.

I massage the meat really well, and make sure to get cure into all the cuts and crevices of the leg.




Closeup of the meat rubbed and massaged with the cure.

This will stay in the fridge for 15-20 days, flipping and massaging half way through.

Once the fridge cure time is up, I'll roll it up tightly and put it in a casing (probably) to dry in the curing chamber.