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.
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