Photo: beats1 (Shutterstock)
Giant fluttering petals of prosciutto may look impressive on a charcuterie board, but that is the last time it’ll look quite so majestic. Ten minutes later, your friends are still attempting to tear apart slices with their hands, and you’re left with a shambles of stringy fat. Avoid this and cut the prosciutto first. It looks neater, it’s easier for your guests to separate into bites, and you won’t end up with a stringy piece of meat stuck in your teeth. The best part (especially if you’re throwing a party on a budget)? You can really stretch those five slices that came in one (expensive) package.
We all know now that you must fold your charcuterie, but unlike salami and other meats that have been ground or processed, prosciutto is cured and sliced from an intact section of muscle. This is why it can feel stringy when you bite into it. It’s also sold in rather massive slices, so you need to bite into it. As much as I like the stuff, an eight by three-inch slice of meat does not fit on my cracker regardless of folding technique. For more cracker-friendly bites, cut the prosciutto horizontally with a sharp chef’s knife. Make sure to press firmly, as any connected strands of ham will pull and get stringy. I usually get three or four equal sections of meat from one slice of prosciutto. Once they’re cut all the way through, proceed to fold once and lay them on the serving dish in an alternating pattern so they don’t stick to one another.
I make quick work of this by laying all of my prosciutto out on the cutting board, stacked, and slicing through them all at once, two or three times. If yours came packed with thin plastic or paper barriers between the slices, there’s no need to remove them before you take a knife to it. Cut through the meat and plastic with a good forceful push, then separate the pieces and discard the plastic before arranging your fancy ham on a platter.
