Christmas ham

[didireallysaythat]

I need help

I love the idea of a ham on Xmas day. I'm cooking for 4-10 - no idea really. What sort of ham, what weight and how do you prepare and cook it ?

It's the only special thing I'll cook so I'd like to do it right. Previous ham experience is those reformed things in a slow cooker with coke. Nice but a bit processed.

TIA

[idontlikealdi]

We I would by a big one with the bone in, roast it in the oven then take the skin off and whack it back in with a glaze, you can score the fat and stud it with clove to look really nice.

IMO you can never have too much Christmas ham it will keep going all through the Christmas period - Boxing Day ham egg and chips, ham sandwiches, ham and turkey pie, ham fried rice, ham and lentil soup - the list goes on.

I love Christmas ham!

[TheImpossibleGirl]

Tesco usually do a good price on ham in December. I will only buy British pork, which is not the cheapest option. I cook mine Christmas Eve and have followed a few recipes. This year I'm going with the recipe in Good Housekeeping (to justify spending £18 on a subscription so I could get some free bowls).

Cider Ham GH

[TondelayaDellaVentamiglia]

yes...tesco are good for their giant hams.

I usually boil mine and then glaze it

pan of water, peppercorns, swathes of herbs, cloves, quartered onion, stick of celery, apple maybe, bit of orange zest ( Itend to go through the spice basket an hurl in what takes my fancy)
dunk ham in and put the lid on, and bring up to the boil, I usually then throw that water out just in case it is a bit salty and scummy

replace with clean water/cider/apple juice/coke/dry ginger whatever you feel really...you should still have all the gubbins so set them into the bottom of the pan as well and let it sit at a really low simer

Once it is about half an hour from being done then I drain it (keep the stock for soup), peel off the icky skin, but leave a good layer of fat...now is the time to mark squares and criss crosses and poke in cloves if you want them and then cover it with something sweet and sticky honey/marmalade/maple syrup/brown sugar/dod of mustard/blob of chutney and give it half an hour in a fairly hot oven.

Lock the kitchen door if you have to leave it to cool otherwise people will pick bits off just to try, it smells AMAAAAZING and then you will have nothing left but a bone.


I tend to pick a theme and run with it...so coke means a spicier backbone to the herbs, and a more neutral sticky glaze

orange peel in with the stock then go marmalade and maybe ginger, dark brown sugar for the glaze

cider for the stock, hurl in a cinnamon stick too, and go syrup, apple juice, wholegrain mustard and cloves for the glaze.


We buy a really big joint, with a bone, and have hot ham rolls for Christmas Eve supper and then the rest for cold cuts.

[islurpmyspaghetti]

This Nigel Slater recipe, boiling a ham in apple juice and black treacle, is a thing of great great beauty.

www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/gammon_with_treacle_81407

[AtSea1979]

spagheti that sounds amazing

[islurpmyspaghetti]

It has been our Christmas staple for the past three years. It is really fantastic.

[PutDownThatLaptop]

Make sure to start with a good one - check for added water. Less added water means a better ham in my opinion.

[didireallysaythat]

Thank you !

Ok. To the ham. Imagine I know nothing. There's ham. There's gammon. And then there's something with a bone in it.

Please could someone post links to said items online e.g. Tesco so I can see what's what. It's a gammon I need, right ? But if there's a bone it's not called gammon ? And bone in takes longer to cook ? I remember my grandma's hams with bone and they were indeed a thing of beauty that lasted the season. But she had a tame butcher. We have one in the village but I always feel an idiot in there as I don't really eat a lot of meat..

[fourcorneredcircle]

Ok, this thread has inspired me. Ginger ham for Christmas Eve with leftovers for sandwiches sounds just up our street. If it was just DH, teenager and I we'd love to just have hot rolls but I know aged rellies would prefer sit down meal. Any suggestions? The internet suggests potato gratin or creamy mash or mac n cheese but I think I'd like something lighter since the following few days will be pretty rich...

What do we think about hassleback potatoes? Also, I'd like nice veg but want the gingery gammon to take centre stage flavourwise.

[TheImpossibleGirl]

Good Housekeeping again. :)
hasselback potatoes

I'm doing them with the ham and a selection of veggies for the big family pre-Christmas gathering. We all get together the week before Christmas so that everyone is free to do their own thing.

[VeryPunny]

You're after a bone in gammon joint. Gammon is cured, ham is generally cooked so once you've cooked your gammon you can call it ham.

Bone in gammon joints are generally not small so if you don't have a large pot to poach it in you'll need to bake it.

You might be able to order a ready to cook gammon from the likes of Waitrose or Marks and Spencer's Christmas food selection - in fact your Waitrose butchery department may be able to order one regardless. Otherwise, plaster on your best steely glare, channel your inner 1950's housewife and demand a bone in gammon for roasting of your butcher. I am a lifelong vegetarian and the butcher I frequent monthly has yet to twig...

[thenewaveragebear1983]

In my experience, a bone in joint is massive! We tend to buy 2 smaller joints, so one for xmas eve through to Boxing Day, then another for later in the week.
If you are interested, lidl do a pre cooked bone in joint on a sort of carbing stand, not had one myself but have heard good things

[didireallysaythat]

I recall the bones joints being enormous. But rather good. Alas my nearest lidl is more than 45 minutes drive away. I may be brave and ask the butcher. If I go at 7am on a Saturday when noone else is there maybe he'll be nicer.

[TheImpossibleGhoul]

I've never had one with the bone in. Might try that this year. I usually get a big gammon/ham (or two if I'm entertaining in the run-up) from Tesco early December (they have a long date).

[DramaAlpaca]

I leave the ham buying & cooking to DH. All I know is that to cook it he uses Delia Smith's recipe & it always turns out perfectly.

[WhenIGrowUpIWantToBeAPenguin]

As another option, this Gordon Ramsay recipe for Maple & mustard glazed ham is pretty straight forward to make, tastes fabulous and always gets loads of compliments when we make it at Christmas. As a PP says, make sure you have a very big pan if you pick a recipe where you have to boil it!

[Pleasemrstweedie]

Go to your local butcher OP. He'll help you get what you need.

I've already ordered mine for this year, so it's a bit late to go for bone in, but that's something to think about for next year. I'll have a corner this year. It'll sit in the slow cooker all day on Christmas Eve. Then I'll take the skin off, score the fat, brush it with honey and mustard and put it in the oven for 30 minutes.

[Footle]

How do you save a thread ?

[VeryPunny]

Footle - top of the thread on mobile view there's a little down arrow. Click on that and you can watch this thread.

Here's Waitrose's bone in Christmas gammon. You can just bin their supplied glaze and do your own if you don't want to do battle with a butcher:

m.waitrose.com/worklight/apps/services/www/Waitrose_Real/mobilewebapp/default/Waitrose_Real.html?l=categoryBrowse&browse=Groceries/Christmas#waitrose_views_LeftSidebarMenu_0,waitrose/views/SearchCategoryView_0,waitrose/widgets/SwapView_0,LoginModalView,LoginView,dojox_mobile_SwapView_0,waitrose/views/TaxonomyCategoryView_4,ProductDetailsView

[VeryPunny]

O FFS. Anyway, just search for Gammon on the Waitrose Christmas food section.

[Footle]

VeryPunny, thanks for that.
There are so many nice ideas here that I'd like to brood over them at leisure

[Popsicle789]

Tried treacle, tried coke.. but the best is marmalade smothered over with cloves.. doesn't discolour the meat or over power the taste.. bloody lush, with new potatoes and homemade winter coleslaw (shredded onion, carrot, white cabbage, red cabbage, brussel sprouts (!), mayo and a bit of horseradish

[Popsicle789]

This is the kind of gammon joint I buy..

m.tesco.com/h5/groceries/r/www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=267158243

[VikingMuchToAllOurLiking]

Bookmarking do I can have a look at these recipes. Mines gone wrong the last couple of years, horribly rubbery and salty. I am a gammon loser.

[WeAllHaveWings]

TheImpossibleGirl we have roasted hassleback potatoes regularly, very tasty, look good and easy to do, they are very nice using small/medium Charlotte potatoes with skin on.

A trick to make slicing easy is to place the potato on a chopping board with a wooden spoon handle on each side then slice, the spoon handles will stop it slicing all the way through so you can do lots really quickly. We don't bother with the soaking in salt and the slices open up nicely.