Finishing off the Ham

I used a preserving pan to cook the gammon last night together with dried bay leaves, white pepper, some dried thyme, a sprinkling of clove, a red onion chopped in half, and some mixed herbs.  Once cooked I left the gammon in the pan overnight covered in foil so that it could cool down in the stock.  I have found in the past by doing this that it manages to keep the meat nice and moist. Sometimes I carry on with the glazing straight away but last night I did not.

OH was hungry when I got up so the ham was trimmed of all the fat and the top cut into diamonds.  I then sprinkled and pushed in dark brown sugar, dried ginger powder and a little apricot jam to form the glaze.  It was then put into the oven to cook on gas mark 5. Its bubbling away all sticky and unctuous but it will definitely be good eating.  You can use various sticky things including brown sugar to create your own toppings.  This time I have used Apricot jam as I had a part jar left from doing the Christmas cake but in the past I have also use marmalade, honey and golden syrup.   I just use whatever I have to hand or try and use something up that is already open.  You could use redcurrant or cranberry sauce as well.  It is ready when the glaze is all syrupy and the top starts to caramelise.  It will not be long before we will be eating some of this.  Yummy.

I have not thrown the stock out this is too valuable.  Some is going into the freezer and the rest towards home made French Onion soup.  You cannot waste good things that are full of flavour and that ultimately do you good.

When I cook generally I do tend to use an awful lot of white pepper and sometimes a mixture of black pepper.  I rarely cook with salt because of OHs high blood pressure but you should always take into account what you are cooking in any event.  When I do Roast Pork for the crackling I put the joint in the oven for the first hour or so on the highest heat my oven will do but I also make sure that the crackling has been wiped dry with kitchen towel as you do not want any moisture there.  I do not add salt  - you really do not need it and so far every piece of pork I have done this way has produced some very nice crackling without adding extra salt.  So there are ways around things.  By the way the flavour is not affected either and I still get a bit of nice pork dripping by adding a couple of packs of lard to the bottom of the roasting tray.

And here is a plateful of the ham that we had to eat.  It really was scrummy.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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