the orphan christmas ham

Anyone who was in Philadelphia on Christmas and attended the celebration that I did some cooking for should remember the ham I made... or maybe not there was a lot of whiskey. Anyway this is the recipe I came up with after reviewing several different recipes for hams.

1 7-10 lb fresh ham
4 ribs celery
3 carrots
2 onions
1 bay leaf
1 cup apple cider (if you just happen to have some)
salt and pepper

The ham crust or "glaze":
Dijon mustard
dark brown sugar
bourbon
1 sleeve of gingersnaps pulverized in a food processor

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Fresh hams come with a very tough skin on the outside that is impossible for the fat to cook through. Most recipes call for you to cut off all of the skin before putting it into the oven. This is a lot of work and a waste of time. Get out your sharpest serrated knife and score the skin all the way around, cut deep enough to be most of the way into the layer of fat but not deep enough to hit meat. Do this in a hatch pattern all around the ham with the lines being about an inch apart.

Now take your vegetables, clean, peel and cut into chunks. Place them in the bottom of your roasting pan with the bay leaf. Take your ham and rest on the vegetables, try to have one of the meat sides on the bottom not a skin side. If you have apple cider just pour it over the ham and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss it in the oven and leave it alone! Basting is most times unnecessary, all you are achieving is letting a bunch of heat out and some of the steam that will build up. This causes things to cook unevenly and take forever. The less you open the oven door the better. The one problem you may encounter if your pan is not deep enough is you will have to periodically drain the fat out of the pan, there is going to be a lot cooking off of it. Even if you have a deep pan don't let the fat go past the bottom of the ham. This is the only reason you should be opening that oven door for the first 2 hours.

After that time pull your ham out of the oven. You will notice that all the squares of skin have crisped up and pulled apart. The should easily come off with a pair of tongs. If you notice that some areas have way too much fat on them still feel free to shave a little off with the bread knife, just don't take off too much that layer of fat is what's holding in all of the moisture. I like to throw the ham back in for like 15-20 minutes just to render off a little more fat.

Now take your ham out again, its time to apply the crust. The first layer in the mustard, take a basting brush (or your hand) and apply a good layer of mustard over the whole ham. Layer two is the brown sugar, sprinkle over the whole thing and just gently pat on with your hand. If you have a clean spray bottle put some of the bourbon in there and spritz down the whole ham. I didn't have one so I just put some bourbon in a bowl and used my fingers to flick it at the ham. The last layer is your gingersnap crumbs, just sprinkle all over and gently pat on again. Lightly sprinkle with salt. Don't worry if the crust looks too wet, it will set in the oven. Pop back in the oven for about 30 minutes or until the crust has completely set. Once it is done the hams internal temperature should read about 150 degrees. Take it out of the oven and let rest for at LEAST 30 minutes. This is incredibly important. If you start carving the ham straight out of the oven all of the juices will run out and onto your cutting board leaving you with ham that is the consistency of a shoe.

Notes:

Fresh hams are great for feeding a lot of people and properly prepared will taste far better and be way juicer then any piece of shit precooked preglazed precured store bought ham you can find. If you do this recipe with one of those hams it will come out terrible. Precooked hams are almost as bad as food from the McDonald's drivethru. They are full of sodium and nitrates, their glazes usually have high fructose corn syrup, and the quality of the ingredients are sub par at best. Go to a good butcher (if you can find one) and tell him what you plan on making and for how many people and he can help you select a ham that will work perfectly for you.

If you don't have a food processor to deal with the gingersnaps just put them in a thick ziplock bag and smash them as much as you can with a can.

This may seem like a lot of work but I did it on Christmas and still had plenty of time to drink and enjoy my friends company. Sometimes the best meal is worth the wait (hence the name slowpokefoods).

If you need help carving your ham I am sure the internet has a hundred great websites with videos and instructions and all that jawn.

Soon to come, the pan gravy you can make from all that stuff left in the pan. Also don't throw away that giant pork bone, make homemade pork stock, then you can make the best hot and sour soup in town!