FLOWER POT KITCHEN: CHRISTMAS HAM HOCK BAKED HAM

16 Dec 2017

CHRISTMAS HAM HOCK BAKED HAM

I love baking a Christmas ham, this is extra special for me as I raise my own organic outdoor rootling tootling loved hugged and pampered pigs, knowing where my food comes from, what a free and fabulous life the pigs have had and what the pigs have eaten makes every mouthful taste so much better, it was a shock when I first started as all our meat tasted quite different, it took me back to my early childhood and each mouthful makes me think of my nan and grandad who I spent a lot of time with and good old fashioned values of use everything, re use everything, only use what you need in the moment, grow what you can and really enjoy life and family.

Brine Time 10 days in the fridge

(If not concerned with nitrates use a butchers gammon no need to brine, start from soaking time)

Soaking time 24hrs / Cooking time 1hr / Roasting time 30-40 minutes

Ingredients

For The Brining

1 hock or gammon of ham

4 ltr water

1 ltr real ale

5 cups Himalayan sea salt approx

10 black peppercorns

1 cup brown sugar

2 bay leaves

Soaking The Ham

1 large pan or bowl

Water

Poaching The Ham

1 large pan of simmering water

1 tbsp black pepper corns

1 tsp sea salt

2 bay leaves

Cooking the Christmas Ham

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp Himalayan sea salt

1 tsp black pepper

2 tbsp Dijon or Colmans English mustard

1 cup dark brown sugar

20m whole cloves

First if you are going to brine your own hock or gammon joint, this means you will not have the preservative nitrates which also creates nitrites, this is in all commercially produced brined pork, by doing this stage yourself (this is personal), your pork can be nitrates free, I take a honest clean joint of pork and brine myself to avoid these preservatives. If you are buying a brined gammon joint go straight to the soaking instructions onwards.

To make your brine, bring the water up to a simmer, add the salt, bay leaves and peppercorns, take off the heat once all the salt has dissolved, add the sugar and real ale and leave to cool. Once cooled add your hock or gammon to the liquid, place in a air tight container in your fridge for the next 10 days to brine and cure the pork.

Soaking Your Ham To Be...

Once your brined ham or gammon joint is ready to be soaked place in a large saucepan of freshly filled cold water and leave to soak in the the fridge, change the water a couple of times over the next 24 hrs.

To Poach / Cook The Ham

Bring a deep fresh pan of water to a simmer, add the ham hock/gammon and cook for 1 hour or until the centre is at 75 degrees C, minimum, (cooked). Remove from the water at this point and get ready to bake the Christmas Ham, you can leave the the ham or gammon hock in the fridge for a couple of days before you need to cook the Christmas Ham! Any extra ahead help over the busy Christmas Holidays is always a help.

To Cook The Christmas Ham

Pre heat your oven to 180 degrees C, remove the skin from the ham hock or gammon, but keep a decent amount of fat on the joint, score the fat on the diagonal from left to right creating a diamond pattern across the surface of the ham, place the whole cloves in to the ham on the cross lines of the diamond pattern scored on the surface of the ham to be. Drizzle the hock or gammon with the olive oil and season with the salt and pepper, mix the mustard and brown sugar together and rub pat all over the surface of the ham creating a crust.

Place the ham in the oven to bake the glaze for 30 minutes, a couple of times during the cooking take the ham out and spoon over all the basting juices and glaze that has run down in to the bottom of the pan. This really does make a difference in the finished flavour of the ham. To check if your ham is cooked the ham should have a prob centre temperature of 80 degrees C or the tip of the metal skewer should be uncomfortabley hot on your upper lip or tip of your nose!

Remove from the oven and leave to cool, basting again with the gorgeous cooking juices and glaze that are running off, this just adds so much more flavour to your Christmas ham.

Place in the fridge and once cooled, get ready to carve away on your gorgeous Christmas Ham.

No comments:

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.