so, I am cooking Nigella's ham in cherry coke...

[silverfrog]

It is in the pan, bubbling away.

We will be eating it tonight.

when it has finished boiling, do I leave it sitting in the liquid until I am ready to glaze/bung in oven (this evening), or do I hoik it out and let it cool off out of the liquid?

hoik and cool.

Although once it has been hoiked it can be purloined off the plate, which is why I leave it in the liquid as long as possible.

thanks, has another hour or so to go.

purloining not necessarily an issue (people will lose hands if they even try ), more just finding a space where it can cool in peace

I'm doing this tomorrow - what are you having it with silver frog?

red cabbage (apparently it is good if you cook it in the liquid left form the ham), roast parsnips (family favourite) and was going to do roasts, but read another thread earlier where everyone was raving about mash with it, so am now torn...

strawberry and baby spinach salad to start, and an ice cream bombe for pud

oh, just in case anyone thinks we eat full celebration dinners everyday - this is our second Christmas meal, as my stepchildren are down with us for their Christmas...

I haven't had any Christmas food yet as I was away on Christmas day, so I wanted to do roasities and parsnips but what about some sort of sauce or gravy?!

erm, not sure.

again, have read threads where people did more of the glaze, and used that as a sauce to top up with, or someone else reduced the cooking liquid down, instead of using it for the cabbage, and used that.

Dh will take over at that point I am sure (he is In Charge of gravy ), but I was vaguely thinking various chutneys etc.

Sorry silver frog just realised I'm using you as a personal recipe book! I'm quite shit at cooking and without really thinking about it I'd probably put some bisto on it .

Chutneys sound like a good call. Hope yours is yummy!

oh, I don't mind

I too am a haphazard cook - which is why I han't even thought about sauces

but might as well use up the Christmas chutneys etc - bonus all round!

will let you know how it turns out, have never even cooked a ham before

I don't even know which isle in the supermarket you get the ham from! I thought you could only get in from the deli counter .

Oh, I had to check that about 3 times - kep t getting to the right section, and then realising I didn't know whether smoked or not, couldn't remember what size I was after, etc etc

but it'll all be ok in the end, I'm sure - it'll be edible at least

I did this on Monday - the ham, red cabbage, potatoes dauphinoise and green beans. Didn't bother with gravy as potatoes are creamy and the red cabbage sort of wettish (yum, making it sound truly appetising )

It turned out really well, and even after feeding 8 there's loads of it left.

Saved the stock, so am planning the mother of all pea & ham risottos for DH & I to have with a bottle of bubbly on NYE.