Recipe: Ginger Pig’s Glazed Ham Recipe

Autumn is here and a traditional glazed ham is a feasting essential during the winter months. This recipe from Ginger Pig has sweet and savoury twangs thanks to the golden syrup that’s balanced with wholegrain mustard and white wine vinegar. Get your glaze on in time for Christmas.

Recipe: Glazed Ham

‘Everybody and every area have their own way of cooking a ham – to me boiling is still the best, it does keep the meat nice and moist and helps disperse a little bit of the saltiness. I suppose the important bit is what happens to the ham after it is cooked. In the old days the skin was taken off the leg and then the whole thing covered in breadcrumbs with a funny little pink dye added. But I much prefer making a bit of a thing from the glaze. A good leg of ham, not too big, plenty of fat round it, can only be enhanced by a sticky sweetish glaze. I have always used treacle and brown sugar for sweetness, dry mustard powder and a little bit of white wine vinegar, for a bit of sharpness. Melt all the ingredients together, pour over the fat which has been scored to allow the glaze to run amongst the slits, and then put in a hot oven for a few minutes to colour. Eaten hot or cold, the glaze does add to the flavour.
Hot ham should be eaten with new potatoes, broad beans and parsley sauce. Cold, several decent thick slices between good white bread and a bit of homemade mustard, makes the very best lunch. If you are from the north-west, a thick slice of hot ham with two poached eggs and a pile of chips, is a great pub lunch.’ Tim Wilson, Founder, Ginger Pig

Ingredients

• 250g Golden syrup
• 100g Demerara sugar
• 25g F&M wholegrain mustard
• 10g White wine vinegar
• 5g English mustard powder

Method

1.Boil a kettle full of water and preheat the oven to 220°C.
2. Whisk together the ingredients for the glaze.
3. Line an ovenproof dish with baking parchment and place the ham on the parchment. Pour boiling water over the ham and leave to cool for 5 minutes.
4. Create an incision lengthways along the centre of the ham and remove the rind. Once the rind is removed score the fat in a diamond pattern at 1-inch intervals.
5. Starting from the highest point, pour the glaze over the ham. Ensure the whole ham is covered with glaze, and, if needed, use a spoon to spread the glaze over the ham.
6. Prick the ham with the cloves, inserting these into the cross-hatched score marks made earlier.
7. Place the ham, in the ovenproof dish, into the oven at 220°C for 20 minutes or until the glazing is golden. Rotate the ham once or twice in the oven during cooking to get an even colour.
8. Remove the ham from the oven and place on a dish ready to serve.

Featured Image: Ginger Pig