culinary quest

[cellio]

Last year I visited my friends Yaakov and Rivka for Purim, and one of their guests brought "vam", a very convincing fake ham made from veal. I would like to make this to spring on some friends, but the person who brought the dish won't share the recipe.

In asking around among people who know much more about cooking than I do, I gather that the solution involves soaking a hunk of meat in brine for a while. I bought a veal roast and cut it into smaller pieces to experiment with. (At $7 or so per pound, I want to keep the trial pieces small enough to be dinner for two.)

We had the first experimental version early last week, and I was disappointed. I'm trying to figure out how to tweak it for experiment number two, which I'd like to try this week.

For the first run, I made a brine out of the following (these amounts are from the recipe; I scaled down): 1C kosher salt, 1/2C brown sugar, 1 gallon stock (I actually used chicken bouillon here), 1T peppercorns, 1/2T allspice berries, 1/2T candied ginger, 1 gallon water. (Recipe attributed to Alton Brown.) I soaked the meat in this for 24 hours in a glass pot (turning a few times), then put it in a casserole, dumped some canned pineapple over it for effect, and baked it (first covered, then uncovered). It had a hint of the saltiness you expect from ham, and it turned slightly pinkish, but I know that much better is possible.

The recipe called for vegetable stock; I didn't have any, hence the bouillon. I can't use bouillon for the real run, though, because all bouillon contains MSG and one of my intended guests is allergic. So I guess I'll have to make a vegetable stock.

The meat came from a kosher butcher (I don't buy non-kosher meat), so it had already been soaked and salted before I began this process.

For the next run, I'm thinking that I should greatly increase the density of the non-water items and/or let it soak for longer. I don't have good instincts here.

Someone suggested using a mix of cloves, ginger, cinnamon, and pepper in the brine. Maybe the cinnamon and cloves would impart the sweetness that was missing from my first trial. (I assume she meant cassia, what's sold as cinnamon in stores.) The person who suggested this mix said that she accidentally brined chicken for too long and it turned pink and tasted like ham, but she didn't record quantities.

Other ideas would be very welcome.

Comments

[steven.livejournal.com]

A ham. Made from veal. My goodness. I know there are tofu substitutes for all kinds of meat, but a veal ham sounds so ... odd.

Then again, I thought chicken made from wheat was weird until I started eating it!

[cellio]

I was quite surprised by it when it was offered to me, but it was really convincing. (I didn't always keep kosher, after all; I used to be quite familiar with ham. :-) )

I should have mentioned that the context for this is a pot-luck dinner among SCA people, all cooks, so I'd rather make something myself than just buy a soy-based product. And I know it's possible, so now I want to figure out how.

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, we own three flavors of boullion that say "No MSG Added; contains naturally occurring glutamates".

[cellio]

Interesting. Steve (the person with the allergy) told me they're very rare, and the ones I've examined in stores (and in my pantry) all have it. What brands are MSG-free?

[eub.livejournal.com]

My guess, by the way, is that a sensitivity to MSG is more likely to be to the glutamate than to the sodium, though there's the question of amount.