Codillo en salmuera
Also known as Codillo en Salmuera
Nationwide, Spain
A brine-cured ham hock.
Overview
Codillo en Salmuera is a plump pink cured hock with clean spice and garlic aroma. after cooking, the meat should be tender and pull from the bone.
Where it's from
The cut
How to recognise it
A plump pink cured hock with clean spice and garlic aroma. After cooking, the meat should be tender and pull from the bone. A raw or grey centre, split filling, greasy purge, sourness or broken refrigeration is unacceptable.
Origins and history
The codillo is the knuckle joint of the pig, taken from the lower part of the fore or hind leg where the shank meets the trotter. Holding it in salmuera, a straightforward salt brine often scented with garlic, bay and peppercorns, is a thrifty old way to keep a tough, collagen-rich cut sound for a week or two beyond slaughter, and it sits within the same Iberian habit of salting that gave us lacón and jamón. The method is wet rather than dry: the hock rests fully submerged so that salt works inward towards the bone. The result is a lightly preserved raw material rather than a finished ready-to-eat cure, sold to be cooked slowly at home. Brining made the collagen-rich hock easier to store and gave it a ham-like colour and flavour before long cooking. The cut remains central to winter dishes with cabbage, potatoes and legumes. The brine preserved a collagen-rich joint until it could be simmered, roasted or cooked with cabbage and potatoes, linking Spanish codillo with a broader Central European hock tradition.
- Protection
- Unprotected.
- Seasonality
- The winter matanza.
Serving and cultural significance
Cook the hock gently until the centre is safe and the connective tissue is tender, then serve it with cabbage, potatoes, lentils or mustard. The cooking liquor may be salty, so taste it before using it in the finished dish.
Recipe and cure
This is not a finished recipe. It is a window into how this meat is traditionally cured. Before you follow any process, please run it through one of our curing calculators, so the salt, cure and timings are right and safe for your own batch.
Make this — the measured Curesmith version →The cure below is the traditional reference. “Make this” opens the measured Curesmith home recipe, scaled to your batch.
Traditional or protected production
Codillo en Salmuera is pork hock cured in seasoned brine before simmering, roasting or braising. It is not a raw ready-to-eat cured meat.
- Meat
- pork
- Cut
- hock (codillo)
- Salt (%)
- 2.5
- Fermented
- No
- Smoked
- No
- Maturation
- brine soak
- Basis
- per 1000 g green meat
- Style
- Brine-cured ham hock
Ingredients
- Básico Salmuera (brine)50% · 500 g/kg
- kosher salt (additional)2.5% · 25 g/kg
- Cure #1 (TCM/DQ #1)0.3% · 3 g/kg
- black peppercorns0.5% · 5 g/kg
- coriander seed0.5% · 5 g/kg
- mustard seed0.5% · 5 g/kg
In the Codex
What this product teaches, and where to read more.
Temple. Roof, Water Activity