How to Make Venison Ham

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A close up of venison ham slices
Photo by Holly A. Heyser

I present to you: mocetta. It was my first-ever dry-cured ham, and it does not come from a pig. This is venison ham.

Mocetta (MOE-chet-uh) is a Northern Italian air-dried goat ham that, I’ve discovered, works well with venison, too.

I wish I could tell you I have an old recipe handed down by the nonnas from Alto Adige, but that’d be a lie. A good lie, yes, but a lie nonetheless. Actually making mocetta became something of a detective job. I can read Italian well enough to read recipes, so I turned Google onto it and read scores of accounts about mocetta, product descriptions in Italian online catalogs, references to it in books, etc.

What I found is that mocetta always has “Alpine herbs and spices.” Um, what the hell does that mean? I decided to go with a piney, aromatic mix of juniper berries, rosemary, bay leaves, black pepper and garlic. Most of these ingredients are mentioned in someone’s mocetta description, so I figured I was close enough.

Why make mocetta? Because it’s a skinless ham. Skinless hams cure easily but are tougher to age well because they can dry out fast. But since we all skin our deer, it’s what you can do.

I do the standard two-step cure many of us use with big hunks o’meat: Rub half the cure mixture on the meat, put in the fridge for several weeks, then rinse and repeat. Yes, you will need to have a leg or two lurking in your refrigerator for the better part of a month. Get a big Tupperware or just deal with it…

Once it’s time to hang the mocetta, you will need a curing space with high humidity and pretty low temperatures. I started mine at 80 percent humidity and about 55°F. As the meat ages, the humidity needs to go down and the temperature needs to go up. At the end, my goat hams were at 60 percent humidity and 60°F.

slicing venison ham
Photo by Holly A. Heyser

Mocetta is not cured for very long, relatively speaking, precisely because it is skinless.

Why? Because originally the Italo-Swiss who made it used wild ibex that lived in the Alps — not easy to haul a wild goat out of the mountains with skin on, only to scrape the fur off to preserve skin like you would a real prosciutto. I was very glad to hear that even in Italy, where some of their best products are massive pains in the asses, they took the “easy” way out on this one.

Still, mocetta needs 2 to 5 months hanging. Better than the 12 to 18 months for a real prosciutto, but long enough to begin to develop those mysterious esthers and flavors that a truly old ham gets. Funky yet aromatic.

Make no mistake: I do not think my venison ham tastes anywhere near as good as real jamon iberico. But sliced thin, it is excellent: Good color, firm but still supple, meaty, fatty and with an aroma that is just this side of goaty. I like it a lot with a husky red wine.

A note on salt. You will need to weigh your meat in grams and then weigh out 2.5 percent of that in sea salt or kosher salt, then another 0.25 percent – that’s one-quarter of one percent – in cure no. 2, which contains sodium nitrate. I use Instacure No. 2.

A close up of venison ham slices
4.91 from 10 votes

Mocetta, Italian Venison Ham

This is essentially a little prosciutto, without the skin. As such it will dry out faster and will be ready in far less time, even as little as three months. The longer you let it hang, the more humidity you will need to prevent the leg from becoming jerky. I aged mine four months and got a good balance of firmness, funkiness, color and flavor. As with any cured meat product, the meat matters: Use only hind legs from a young deer or antelope, or meat from small farmers who care about their product. And you need to use curing salt No. 2, which you can buy online. 
Course: Cured Meat
Cuisine: Italian
Servings: 1 ham
Author: Hank Shaw
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients 

  • 1 small hind leg of a deer, about 5 pounds
  • Instacure No. 2 (see above)
  • Kosher salt (see above)
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 25 grams garlic powder
  • 10 grams juniper berries
  • 12 grams black pepper
  • 5 grams dried thyme
  • 12 grams fresh rosemary
  • 15 bay leaves

Instructions 

  • Grind the juniper berries, black pepper, thyme and bay leaves together until fine. Mince the rosemary. Combine all the spices with the salts and mix well. Divide this mixture in half. Put one part of the cure away in a sealed container.
  • Carefully rub half the mixture into the goat legs, making sure to get lots into the ball joint that had connected the leg to the pelvis; this is where leg cuts often spoil. Massage the spices and salts into the meat.
  • Put the legs into a large container and refrigerate for 2-3 weeks. Drain off any liquid that seeps out of the meat. You will know it’s about done when the meat has firmed up quite a bit.
  • Rinse off the cure and pat the legs dry. Repeat Step 3 with the second half of the cure.
  • Let the legs cure in the fridge for another 7-10 days. The longer you go, the saltier the meat will be — and the longer it will last without spoiling.
  • When you are ready, rinse off the cure again and soak the legs in fresh water for an hour. This relieves a little of the saltiness and results in a moister cure — you needed to cure with so much salt for so long to make sure it penetrated all the way through to the bone. The water soak removes some of that salt so it won’t be overpowering when you ultimately serve the mocetta.
  • Hang for 2-5 months. You want a temperature between 40 and 60°F (colder at the beginning, and warmer near the end), and a humidity starting at about 80 percent and slowly decreasing — say, 5 percent a week) until you are at about 60 percent humidity.
  • Once it’s ready, you can cut the meat from the bone and slice thin, or slice bone-in. Serve at room temperature with cheese and a husky red wine. Wrap closely and store in the fridge, or seal it and freeze it.

Notes

Note that prep time does not include curing or drying time. 

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Tried this recipe? Tag me today!Mention @huntgathercook or tag #hankshaw!

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About Hank Shaw

Hey there. Welcome to Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, the internet’s largest source of recipes and know-how for wild foods. I am a chef, author, and yes, hunter, angler, gardener, forager and cook. Follow me on Instagram and on Facebook.

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114 Comments

  1. Hi Hank,

    Thanks for the recipe. I have mocetta piccolo (goat) curing right now, based on this recipe. I am wondering about the second cure though…I have done a few pork prosciutto/jamon serranos and they only called for one round of salting for a similar duration. They are also much larger and seem to have a higher volume/surface area ratio, as well as skin (my goat leg is skinless). I am guessing that makes it harder for the salt to reach the interior of the hog leg. Is there a reason specific to goat/deer or mocetta that your recipe includes the second round of salt (and a relatively long duration)? Also, am I wrong to fear that a water soak will also leach out some of the flavor? Right now, the leg is giving off very little liquid after just a week in the salt and herbs. I often struggle with the salting, as over salted charcuterie tastes like a salt lick, but under salting seems risky. Please share your thoughts if you have a minute. Thanks!

    1. Matt: A water soak won’t leach out too much flavor, but it can take out a lot of salt. Salting is an art, so you just need to do it a bit. Keep testing the leg by squeezing it at thick points: You want it to be firm throughout, like bacon, not like raw meat. It can take a while for the salt to reach the center, but it’s important, especially with bone-in hams — if the salt doesn’t get all the way to the bone, the meat can sour where it touches bone.

  2. How large were the legs? I have two that are quite small (just under 2lbs a piece) that I just took out of the freezer, Should I alter the recipe? seems like I should be using about 4-5 grams of instacure 2 and scale the rest accordingly? Am I on the right track?

  3. I just tried my first attempt. I used a refrigerator with the humidifier. and had the temp about right but had a hard time with the humidity–I travel for work and the humidifier would run out of water while I was gone and the humidity would drop.

    The taste was awesome. It was pretty dry but had some mold fuzz growing on it. I brushed it off and rinsed it under tap water, patted dry and stored them.

    Thanks for posting. Next time will surely be better and I think I might try the same cure but smoke one for a couple of days.

  4. I love this recipe! I made it last year from a small doe and had My nephew take it to a fine dining place he works at to have it sliced. I guess the staff and owners commandeered a sample and agreed it was hands down better than the prosciutto they were being sourced. I tend to agree. I’m in my kitchen preparing this years hams. Thanks for the knowledge and making me look good!

  5. What are your thoughts on doing this with an adult goat leg? Too strong a flavour?

    Do you have an approximate starting weight for the meat you used? I was thinking of using one adult goat leg for the same amount of spice mix. Do you think that would work?

  6. Tina: I have a humidifier set up in an old fridge that has a temperature regular on it. Keeps the humidity to about 70 percent. Works like a charm!

  7. btw~
    what kind of setup do you have for hanging your hams? we have always had the problem of getting the proper humidity. a friend makes us a basque ham every year but it stays in the susanville area until around december so it gets proper humidity.

  8. for a taste of your Mocetta, i will gladly share my deli-size meat slicer with you!
    we’re just down the road a bit in the “nut tree” valley 😉

    looking forward to giving this a try…i have a goat who keeps escaping….

  9. Oh my God,

    just discovered your site. I live in New Zealand and it is winter over here. Ideal circumstances for me to make ham and air dried sausages. The right temperature and humidity for at least three-four months of the year. I have just started this drying melarky and I am waiting eagerly for my first batch of Chorizo to loose their last excess liquid (200 ml to go) and they smell divine and my first batch of Prosciutto is just about ready to be air cured. I just found a great source for goat and just googled goat ham and you turned up. Also I googled Alpine herbs and spices and found this link. https://www.swissalpineherbs.ch/en/produkte/bio_kraeutermischungen.php. Hope it helps.

    I’m sure am going to try your ham.

    Cheers

  10. Hank: Yeah, repeat what everyone else said about “hero”. The comments about higher humidity being *good* for the cure is making me reconsider whether I couldn’t do this in my apartment in San Francisco….assuming I can keep the temperature low enough.

    The nitrate is critical to prevent botulism (IIRC) takeover, I assume?

  11. Peter: Temp and humidity are pretty important here, and of the two humidity is the most important. You REALLY need to watch or the ham will dry out fast.

  12. I would totally go halfsies on the slicer with you, but the whole mailing it back and forth thing might get cumbersome. My latest batch of duck prosciutto was so good that a guest also thought it was jamón. If only I had a basement I would be doing this right away. How exacting do you think one needs to be with temp and humidity?

  13. Mark: If you wanted to, you could case the leg with warmish lamb or pork fat — spreadable, like butter — and then coat the fat layer with cracked peppercorns and coriander seeds. No flour. I just never got around to doing this, and the mocetta came out fine.

  14. Could the goat ham leg not be “cased” in a mixture of flour, salt, spices, to prevent too much drying? I’m under the impression that prosciutto is cased this way, farmstead style.

  15. yeah, hank, i think you’re my my hero too. your blog really teaches me new things. not many out there that do that. i would absolutely love to taste this. thank you for a wonderful post! and it sounds like you did a great job w/ the catering gig.