Norway > Recipes > Norwegian Cuisine > Spekekjøtt

When preparing spekeskinke, fenalår and other spekekjøtt, the meat is fully salt cured, before it is smoke cured and dried (speked).

Prepare a full brine solution as follows:

What You'll Need

• 10 litres of water
• 2.5 kg salt
• 500 - 700 g (6 to 8 dl) sugar
• For spekeskinke, either the ham or the side of the pork can be used.
• For fenalår, use leg of mutton.

What to do

• The curing process:
• Make sure the meat is clean cut and free of blood.
• Leave the meat in the brine solution for 6 to 10 weeks, in general about a week for each kilogram of meat. If you intend to smoke cure it as well, you can shorten the brine curing period somewhat.
• Before smoking the meat, water it for 8 to 10 hours, and make sure it is dry on the surface before starting the smoke curing.
• The speke (drying) process:
• Hang the meat in a dry, cold place with good ventilation. The meat must be protected from insects etc be keeping it hangin in a bag of lightly woven cotton which is kept from coming in contact with the meat.
• Spekeskinke is ready after 4 to 5 months.
• For Fenalår (leg of mutton) keep the meat in the brine solution for 8 to 10 days, before smoke curing it (optional), Fenalår is ready speked after 3 to 4 months.