At this time of year, in the run up to the festive season, there are few more pleasurable things than cooking and serving a whole roast ham. Always decadent, with its crisp sweet glaze and glisteningly glace cherries. You can either serve the ham hot from the oven with pickles and warm potato salad, or cold as part of a buffet spread, letting your guests carve the ham themselves. If you are feeling slightly less formal you can use slices of this to make posh ham, egg and chips or in thick doorstop sandwiches with lashings of mustard. The poaching liquor also makes an excellent stock base for warming winter soups – it is particularly good in a pea and ham soup (using some of the ham in the recipe). My ginger ham has a light glaze made with maple syrup – if you prefer your ham to look a little more traditional with a dark glaze just add a few tablespoons of black treacle to the glazing mixture.
Serves 8 – 10
1.5kg unsalted gammon ham
1.5 litres ginger beer
250ml cider
1 litre water
1 tsp whole cloves
2 star anise
2 inch piece of ginger
1 orange bell pepper
1 large cooking apple
1 large white onion
For the glaze
80ml maple syrup
80ml cider
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 heaped tbsp Dijon mustard
1 heaped tbsp wholegrain mustard
85g light brown sugar
To decorate
Glace cherries
Whole cloves
Wash the ham and place it in a large saucepan with the ginger beer, cider and water. The pan needs to hold nearly 3 litres of liquid and the ham so a large jam pan is ideal. If you have not got a pan large enough simply omit some of the water from the recipe – but remember the ham needs to have enough room to float in the pan freely. Add the cloves and star anise. Peel and finely slice the ginger and add it to the pan. Chop the pepper into thick slices and remove the seeds. Chop the apple and onion into large pieces and add to the pan together with the pepper. Simmer for about 1 ½ hours, turning the ham over every 20 minutes or so to ensure even cooking. Drain the ham, reserving the poaching liquor if you are using as stock. Mix together all the glaze ingredients to a smooth paste. Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 5/190C/375F. Using a sharp knife carefully cut away the skin of the ham and discard. Score lines in a crisscross pattern into the fat on the ham. Place in a roasting tin and spoon the glaze over the ham. Roast for about 25 – 30 minutes, basting with the glaze every 5 minutes, until the ham is golden. If the glaze starts to smoke in the roasting pan add a little extra cider or water. When cooked, remove the ham from the oven and allow to cool slightly, then decorate by securing half cherries slices to the ham with whole cloves.
Sometimes life can be so beautiful, it takes your breathe away. I should have know on Friday night when it was minus 13 as I drove home that it would be a bit frosty the next morning, little did I know how stunning it was going to be. I can safely say that I have lived in my cottage for 7 years now and I have never seen the lane look as beautiful as it did on Saturday morning. It was as if the cottage had somehow been transported overnight to Narnia - sadly no appearance from Mr Tumnus but lots of beautiful snowy scenery! I wrapped up warm and spent an hour taking photos and then had hot chocolate in front of the log fire to warm up - what a perfect start to the weekend!
