FLOWER POT KITCHEN: THE CHRISTMAS HAM

5 Jan 2014

THE CHRISTMAS HAM

WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS HAM

Among all my loves at Christmas, cooking the ham is the start to all my traditional cooking rituals and the exciting anticipation from cooking new recipes that I will be trying over the two week christmas period. I have a lot of old fashioned traditional recipes handed down through my family that I will never change and then there are the new trends and fads that sneak their way in for an attempt to be added to the annual must cook list !

INGREDIENTS

5kg leg of pork brined

AROMATIC FLAVOURS

10 whole peppercorns

5 juniper berries

5 crushed cardamom pods

1 star anise

1 carrot

1 onion halved

1 leek rough chopped

2 sticks of celery

5ltrs cider

THE GLAZE

100g soft dark brown sugar

2 tbsp mustard

2 tbsp marmalade

20 whole cloves

This is a lovely calm simple start to the Christmas cooking frenzy (in my house, too many cooks)!!! I make sure when it comes to cooking my ham it is on a day I am home, this gives me a stress free no timeline. Nowadays I do not feel the need to soak my brined ham as I have found that there is much less salt used in the brines to date.

(Update I have had a couple of hams that were salty, so I am now going back to soaking my ham for 24hrs in the fridge, changing the water three or four times)

Fill a deep pan with the cider and bring to a simmer with all the aromatic flavours thrown In, add the ham, top up with water if the ham is not covered, simmer for approx 4-5hrs, if your using a probe your ham is ready when you reach 75 degrees in the deepest centre part. I like to leave the ham now to cool down in the stock liquor, this makes a huge difference to the moistness and overall flavour of your ham, as your ham cools it soaks back some of the stock. Leave for a couple of hours if you can.

Pre heat your oven to 170 degrees, take your ham and gently remove the skin keeping the fat intact on the ham. Gently score the fat, not to deep so that you can see the meat. Now take your glaze ingredients and mix well together, paste over the scored ham and with the cloves gently push the studs randomly into some of the criss cross sections of the fat.

Place in your roasting tin with another litre of cider or water creating a water bath to help retain moisture and cover well with foil, cook at 170 degrees for 25 minutes, remove the foil and brown off the caramelised crust for a further 20mins, then bring out, cover and leave resting for at least one hour if you can! In my home I. Have to fight my family off from attacking the ham at this point!

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LIFE MY PASSION

Welcome to my daily life of cooking, one winters day many years ago my family and I were all inspired by a back to back rainy day of River Cottage this got us to stop talking about and start actually doing, suddenly three weeks later eight vegetable beds were dug, greenhouse erected and our first vegetables were propagating, this was the start to raising and growing our own food, our fabulous son Oscar changed our path in life which lead us to sell our small thriving restaurant of 10 yrs and to start our new life (Terrifying!) a life of the self sufficient in touch with nature and seasons, taking a step back and looking forward to a slower change of pace and making the most of every moment.

My passion for cooking was stronger than ever and having time at home with Oscar I found I had a new direction and I was no longer striving for perfection, I was suddenly very passionate for the enjoyment of the other side of food, something I had not realised, being the Chef/Cook and every other duty of your own small restaurant made me see that I never actually took time to cook what I wanted!

So there I was muddy boots and hands digging deep in more than one sense and I found myself transported back in time to where everyone grew some of their own food, it is a wonderful world with a real sense of achievement and loss, Slugs Snails and Caterpillars! But thats another story! Childhood memories of summers when I lived with my grand parents reminded me of so much that I had learnt about the make do and mend generation that I had forgotten.

Now as a family we love our free wild food days where we gather what nature has provided, have gone from being mini mini garden urban small holders, who did raised pigs at home because we could not wait to find land and supporting ourselves from our garden to now owning a very small farm that allows us to grow more vegetables for the whole of our family and neighbours, raise our own gorgeous Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, (Sausages!) and pets! Dorset Down sheep, chickens for eggs and pet goats! Suddenly having large quantities of produce started to wake up the Cook in me!

The Cook was awake that part of me that wants to cook for the masses and I found myself setting up Flowerpot Kitchen, a Farmers Market Stall, I wanted to use our honest raised meats and make old fashioned pork pies, rabbit pies and game pies from the local game keeper along with old fashioned techniques and the best hot water crust pastry. This in turn grew to a small cottage industry from home weekly supplying three farm shops and a deli along with also attending three farmers markets A few years later there came a time when my son Oscar's health changed and it was an easy decision to stop.

I still hold the occasional pop up 40 seater restaurant or gourmet lunch which we do for local charities for the love of sharing food and to remind that Cook in me why I love our go slower self sufficient life!

So here I am sitting amoung the vegetables watching the chickens loving that every season nature teaches me something new and that nature is in charge! She has taught me to just go with it and grow. Give it a try from a tray of salad on your windowsill to a few tomato plants it all counts.