Tasso ham is a smoked, spiced, and cured meat, a specialty of south
Louisiana cuisine
Louisiana Creole cuisine (french: cuisine créole, lou, manjé kréyòl, es, cocina criolla) is a style of cooking originating in Louisiana, United States, which blends West African, French, Spanish, and Amerindian influences,
as well as ...
. In this case "
ham
Ham is pork from a leg cut of pork, cut that has been food preservation, preserved by wet or dry Curing (food preservation), curing, with or without smoking (cooking), smoking."Bacon: Bacon and Ham Curing" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. Lo ...
" is a misnomer since tasso is not made from the hind leg of a hog, but rather the
hog's shoulder. This cut is typically fatty, and because the muscle is constantly used by the animal, has a great deal of flavor. The shoulder (also called the butt), which will weigh 7 to 8 pounds, is sliced across the grain into pieces about 3 in (7.5 cm) thick. These are dredged in a salt cure, which usually includes
sodium nitrite
Sodium nitrite is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula NaNO2. It is a white to slightly yellowish crystalline powder that is very soluble in water and is hygroscopic. From an industrial perspective, it is the most important nitrite ...
and sugar. The meat is left to cure briefly, only three or four hours, then rinsed, rubbed with a spice mixture containing
cayenne pepper
The cayenne pepper is a type of ''Capsicum annuum''. It is usually a moderately hot chili pepper used to flavor dishes. Cayenne peppers are a group of tapering, 10 to 25 cm long, generally skinny, mostly red-colored peppers, often with ...
and
garlic
Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plant in the genus ''Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, Allium fistulosum, Welsh onion and Allium chinense, Chinese onion. It is native to South A ...
, and
hot-smoked until cooked through.
Though tasso may be eaten on its own, it is more often used as part of a flavor base for stews or braised vegetables. It is used in dishes ranging from pasta to
crab cake
A crab cake is a variety of fishcake that is popular in the United States. It is composed of crab meat and various other ingredients, such as bread crumbs, mayonnaise, mustard (typically prepared mustard, but sometimes mustard powder), eggs, and ...
s to soup and gravy. Appropriate to its roots, tasso is most often found in recipes of
Creole or
Cajun
The Cajuns (; French: ''les Cadjins'' or ''les Cadiens'' ), also known as Louisiana ''Acadians'' (French: ''les Acadiens''), are a Louisiana French ethnicity mainly found in the U.S. state of Louisiana.
While Cajuns are usually described as ...
origin, such as
jambalaya
Jambalaya ( , ) is an American Creole and Cajun rice dish of French (especially Provençal cuisine), African, and Spanish influence, consisting mainly of meat and vegetables mixed with rice.
Ingredients
Traditionally, the meat includes sa ...
.
See also
*
List of smoked foods
This is a list of smoked foods. Smoking is the process of flavoring, cooking, or preserving food by exposing it to smoke from burning or smoldering material, most often wood. Foods have been smoked by humans throughout history. Meats and fish a ...
*
References
Pork
Cajun cuisine
Smoked meat
{{US-cuisine-stub