The holiday season is fast upon us, and for many of us,that means serving ham. Sadly, holiday hams at many tables range from the ho-hum to the heinous, with really good ones being the exception.
Few of us have access to really good hams. And by that, I mean non-agribusiness pork cured with care, well-smoked and well-aged. If you can get one of these, and you can AFFORD one of these, good on ya. But most of us are stuck with hams bought at the supermarket.
If you are buying a supermarket ham, I have two pieces of advice for you. First, pass on the "ready to eat" hams. As James Beard observed, they are misnamed, as they are not ready to eat and they likely never will be. Look for a real ham, with some skin on it, and a bone in it. These can often be had fairly inexpensively. They are no great shakes, they were agribusiness pigs, likely with mediocre diets and unhappy lives, and their meat has been cured by brine injection to process quickly and also pump up the weight of the finished product. But they are at least real hams. Like some people, they may be somewhat lacking in character,but they possess a certain basic integrity and their is hope for them.
My second piece of advice is not to do the strange weird over-the-top perversely sweet ham treatments that many traditionally do. And by that I mean resist the temptation to boil the thing in soft drinks, to glop it up with pineapple and maraschino cherries.
You can lend dignity to this humble ham by doing as the French do, simply braising it on a bed of aromatics with some dry white wine.
Begin with a mirepoix. What's that? So glad you asked. It is a very basic technique which adds flavor to everything from soups to roasts. It is simply 2 parts chopped onion combined with one part each of chopped carrots and celery. So chop two onions, perhaps three celery ribs and a couple of carrots. Put these in the bottom of a large pot with a bit of olive oil and saute to take away the rawness. Add a couple of chopped garlic cloves, if you like, a couple of bay leaves, a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme or a pinch of dry, and some ground black pepper. No need to add salt, this is a commercial ham, there is salt in excess.
Skin the ham. Save the skin, as it can be draped fat-down over the breast of your turkey as a wonderful flavor-enhancing self-baster.
Place the ham atop the mirepoix, add a bottle of dry white wine, and set to simmer slowly, covered, for a half hour per pound of ham. At the end of that time you will have a wonderful ham, the excess salt drawn out of it, moist and infused with the aromatic complexities of the veggies, herbs and wine, needing nothing to dress it up except a good mustard to serve on the side, and some horseradish for those who are partial to it.
Don't throw out the braising liquid. This can rejoin the hambone and scraps as the base for a split pea, bean or lentil soup. Waste not, want not.
If you must have a sweeter ham, you can replace the mirepoix with chopped onion, omit the herbs and use madeira or marsala in place of the white wine. This can be glazed at the end with the traditional brown sugar and mustard shmeer and baked briefly to set the glaze.
Enjoy.
Few of us have access to really good hams. And by that, I mean non-agribusiness pork cured with care, well-smoked and well-aged. If you can get one of these, and you can AFFORD one of these, good on ya. But most of us are stuck with hams bought at the supermarket.
If you are buying a supermarket ham, I have two pieces of advice for you. First, pass on the "ready to eat" hams. As James Beard observed, they are misnamed, as they are not ready to eat and they likely never will be. Look for a real ham, with some skin on it, and a bone in it. These can often be had fairly inexpensively. They are no great shakes, they were agribusiness pigs, likely with mediocre diets and unhappy lives, and their meat has been cured by brine injection to process quickly and also pump up the weight of the finished product. But they are at least real hams. Like some people, they may be somewhat lacking in character,but they possess a certain basic integrity and their is hope for them.
My second piece of advice is not to do the strange weird over-the-top perversely sweet ham treatments that many traditionally do. And by that I mean resist the temptation to boil the thing in soft drinks, to glop it up with pineapple and maraschino cherries.
You can lend dignity to this humble ham by doing as the French do, simply braising it on a bed of aromatics with some dry white wine.
Begin with a mirepoix. What's that? So glad you asked. It is a very basic technique which adds flavor to everything from soups to roasts. It is simply 2 parts chopped onion combined with one part each of chopped carrots and celery. So chop two onions, perhaps three celery ribs and a couple of carrots. Put these in the bottom of a large pot with a bit of olive oil and saute to take away the rawness. Add a couple of chopped garlic cloves, if you like, a couple of bay leaves, a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme or a pinch of dry, and some ground black pepper. No need to add salt, this is a commercial ham, there is salt in excess.
Skin the ham. Save the skin, as it can be draped fat-down over the breast of your turkey as a wonderful flavor-enhancing self-baster.
Place the ham atop the mirepoix, add a bottle of dry white wine, and set to simmer slowly, covered, for a half hour per pound of ham. At the end of that time you will have a wonderful ham, the excess salt drawn out of it, moist and infused with the aromatic complexities of the veggies, herbs and wine, needing nothing to dress it up except a good mustard to serve on the side, and some horseradish for those who are partial to it.
Don't throw out the braising liquid. This can rejoin the hambone and scraps as the base for a split pea, bean or lentil soup. Waste not, want not.
If you must have a sweeter ham, you can replace the mirepoix with chopped onion, omit the herbs and use madeira or marsala in place of the white wine. This can be glazed at the end with the traditional brown sugar and mustard shmeer and baked briefly to set the glaze.
Enjoy.
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