Yields about 7 kg (15 lb 12 oz)

Air-dried ham has all sorts of names depending on where you first encountered it – prosciutto, jambon, jamón. There are many variations, some using smoke, some using red wine, but here is the simplest version where the leg is salt-cured (no nitrate) and hung to dry. In the right environment the leg could be matured for years, but plan on not touching it for six months and eating it at 12 months for most locations. It’s important to use a big leg, preferably from a fat, female pig so it doesn’t dry out and the meat is sweet at the start. It’s far easier to find a place to hang a ham in temperate regions than it is in hotter climes, so adjust your curing, hanging and eating times accordingly.

10 kg (22 lb 8 oz) free-range pork leg, boned out to reveal ball joint

2–3 kg (4 lb 8 oz–6 lb 12 oz) medium-grain pure sea salt

lard, for smearing

coarsely ground black pepper

fly netting or fine cloth such as muslin (cheesecloth), to avoid insects

a swag of patience

Trim the pork leg well so it doesn’t have any dags hanging off, or deep cuts. Cut it so it is rounded at the base. We like to give the meat a good beating at this stage, but a solid massage also works. To soften the meat, we give it a decent walloping with a wooden rolling pin for about 30–40 whacks, trying to give all the leg a bit of a seeing-to, avoiding any bony bits.

There is likely to be some blood in an artery that runs down the leg, and you can squeeze this out by pressing from the foot end up along the bone and towards the hip joint. Only a teaspoon or less will be there, and we mop it up using a bit of kitchen paper. Some people inject the artery with a brine solution from the foot end, to flush it out, but we find that hard to do and the pressing method is just as successful.

Take a large non-reactive tub, preferably one with a lid, and put some salt in the bottom. Place the leg in the tub and rub the salt liberally all over, particularly around the exposed meat and ball joint area. Lay the leg, skin side down, in a bed of salt and cover the exposed meat with more salt. Place a weight on top of the leg (if you’re curing two legs, let one weigh the other down, and swap them over each day) — about 5–8 kg (11 lb 4 oz–18 lb) of weight is good. You could use a flour bag or water containers, making sure you protect the leg from the weight using plastic wrap.

Keep the leg in this salt for about 15 days at 12°C (54°F) or below (allow 1½–2 days per kilo of meat), turning it and rubbing the slurry of salt over it as you go.

When the leg has cured, remove from the salt and wash it off. Many people use red wine vinegar to rub over the pork at this point to keep the surface sterile. Smear the open side of the meat well with enough lard to completely seal it.

Scatter coarsely ground black pepper on the lard and hang the leg in a cool place (12°C or below) — you want cool and humid rather than a coolroom, which is cool and dry. In some areas you may need to cover the meat with fly netting, and always find a place that is away from rodents. Hang the meat for 6 months or even better 1 year. Ideally, it will get a bloom of white mould all over after a few weeks.

When ready to eat, scrub off the mould and the lard, perhaps trimming the outside of the meat. Carve off the skin and discard. Cut very fine slices of the ham and serve very simply, perhaps with fragrant melon, grissini or sweet summer figs.