#40 minutes under normal pressure; strain; serve with cayenne and a squeeze of lemon or freeze for future soup

[smaller-comfort]

We tend to mostly watch food shows in this household, and every time Iberico ham comes up in whatever show we're watching (Choped, Buzzfeed's Worth It, Master Chef, whatever)- I get a terrible flashback to the time @pissyeti came home from the cheese shop with an entire Iberico leg bone.

We made stock out of it, because what else are you going to do with a $99 leg bone? Except we threw it in a crock pot overnight; this was before we had an instantpot. It made the whole house smell like ham water.

The whole house just. Smacked of ham.

We ended up making the most amazing soup out of it (oranges, guajllo chiles, coffee, brisket), but my god. Imagine the dog-food qualities of prosciutto, intensified a thousandfold, permeating your clothes and skin. That inescapable porcine essence, suffusing your soul for days. An umami-bomb nightmare.

Anyway, Iberico itself is a strange thing- this is the wagyu of pigs, fed an exclusive diet of acorns- and the taste is distinctly lemony on top of the layered complexity of cured meat. Good shit; if you have access to buy it by the pound, try a slice or two.

Just- don't make stock in the crockpot unless you're prepared for the consequences.