Lacón Gallego
Galicia (regional), Galicia, Spain
Milder and more compact than a ham, savoury and typically boiled rather than sliced raw.
Overview
Lacón Gallego is the cured front leg of the pig, not a smaller hind-leg ham. The shoulder is salted, rested and dried for a relatively short period, then traditionally soaked and cooked. Its identity is tied to Galician winter food, particularly lacón con grelos.
Where it's from
Climate. The damp, mild Atlantic climate of Galicia.
Altitude. Atlantic Galicia, low and damp
How to recognise it
The piece is smaller and more compact than a ham, with the shoulder blade and foreleg structure clearly present. After cooking, the meat is pink, tender and savoury with soft connective tissue around the bone. A grey raw centre, sour odour, slimy surface, rancid fat or meat that remains tough after adequate cooking indicates a problem.
- Shape and size
- Cured foreleg, more compact than a ham
- Lean colour
- Rosy red
- Fat and marbling
- White
- Casing
- None
- Surface bloom
- Possible
Origins and history
Galician households slaughtered pigs during the cold months and assigned each cut to a different timetable. Hind legs became hams, while the muscular front legs could be salted and used sooner. Lacón supplied meat for Carnival and the final weeks before Lent, when families served it with turnip greens, potatoes and chorizo. The word comes from the anatomical foreleg and remains a practical distinction rather than a marketing flourish. Rural production later developed into a recognised regional trade, with the protected form divided into traditional and standard categories according to the pigs and husbandry used. PGI recognition preserves Galician processing and the product's place in one of the region's defining dishes.
Name. Lacon, from the Latin lacca, the foreleg or shank.
- Production today
- Producers across Galicia.
- Protection
- IGP (Lacon Gallego).
- Tradition vs modern
- Traditionally salted and air-dried, then cooked. The Lacon Gallego PGI prohibits smoking, so nothing but salt, the pig and the damp Atlantic air shapes the flavour.
- Seasonality
- Associated with Carnival (Entroido).
Compare with. Jamón Serrano
Serving and cultural significance
Serve thick slices with grelos, potatoes and chorizo for the classic Galician dish, especially around Carnival. Leftovers work in croquettes, empanadas, soups and sandwiches. The cooking liquor can season vegetables, but its salt level should be tasted before use.
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.
Curesmith home adaptation — not designation-compliant
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
The PGI applies to qualifying pork forelegs processed in Galicia. Salting, post-salting and drying are controlled, and the product may be identified as Lacón Gallego Tradicional where the additional traditional raw-material conditions are met. It is commonly prepared by desalting and cooking rather than eaten as an ambient dry ham.
Sea salt, salt-box method. The Lacon Gallego PGI is air-dried, never smoked. No fixed percentage.
- Meat
- pork
- Salt (%)
- traditional, no fixed %
- Curing salt
- Sea salt
- Fermented
- No
- Starter or mould
- Natural cellar mould possible
- Smoked
- No
- Target aW or weight loss
- ~ weight loss
- Temperature (°C)
- cold salting, then rising through the cellar
- Humidity (%)
- 60 to 80
- Maturation
- a few weeks to a couple of months
- Basis
- percentage of green meat weight
- Style
- Traditional dry salting (salt-box)
Ingredients
- kosher salt3.5% · 35 g/kg
- Cure #10.45% · 4.5 g/kg
Method
- Salt the leg cold in sea salt, roughly a day per kilo, then brush off.
- Rest cold so the salt equalises through the leg.
- Move to the cellar and age, letting the temperature rise through the warmer months.
- Age to the target loss, judging by feel and weight.
Notes
- The official protected specification controls the named product. Any Curesmith EQ, starter-culture, curing-salt or home-scale adaptation is a separate method and must not be presented as designation-compliant.
- A more efficient way of curing this product is using the EQ Method. No more than 2.5% salt to meat weight is required. To follow the EQ method, please use our whole-muscle EQ curing calculator to work out proper ratios and curing times.
- A brine cure (the cooked lacon): soaked in a basic brine at 50% of meat weight (water salted at 6.2% with sugar at 2.4% of the water), with an additional 3.5% salt and Cure #1 at 0.45%, plus aromatics. Being a soak, these are not a simple ingoing dry-cure percentage.
In the Codex
What this product teaches, and where to read more.
Temple. Pillar, Meat Quality