So, here we are in 2014 and a very happy and healthy New Year to you all and thank you for all your good wishes! This is a dish I made over Christmas, but it was so good I’ve just bought another smoked ham joint to make it again.
Perfect hot or cold, great as a main course with chips, mashed potatoes or jackets or in sandwiches or as a sneaky midnight feast….
I was inspired by this recipe I found over on the BBC Good Food site, but of course I changed it a little. Well, life would be dull without a few twists and turns! Big Man and I were back to work today at the house renovation and tonight the limbs are aching. A few days off have turned me into a useless Lady Builder. Or maybe it was the food and alcohol…
Ingredients for a 3.5kg ham joint (but they’re flexible)
- 3.5kg cured ham or gammon (smoked or unsmoked, the choice is yours)
- 2 litres of ginger ale (plus you may need extra water to cover the meat)
- The zest and juice of 2 tangerines and one orange
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 onion
- 6 cloves
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 10 peppercorns
- 1 dried chili
For the glaze
- 3 tbsp molasses or treacle
- 3 tbsp thick cut marmalade
Put the meat into a large pot and add all the first set of ingredients (and extra water if needed to cover the joint). Bring to a boil, skimming off any scum then simmer, partly covered for about 3 ½ hours. Leave to cool in the stock and use the stock to cook lentils with or make soup – it’s amazing!
If you want to glaze your ham (you don’t have to but it’s worth doing), warm the molasses and marmalade together in a small saucepan until melted. Peel the skin off you ham if it has skin on and score the skin. Pour the glaze over your ham (which you will need to put into a heavy oven tray lined with greaseproof paper to save ruining your oven tray) and bake at about 220 degrees C for 30-40 minutes until the glaze starts to brown. Baste it every 10 minutes while it is cooking.
Serve hot or cold – it will keep for about 10 days (in theory) but I bet you won’t be able to resist scoffing the lot before then.
And if you have any leftovers…well, I’ll tell you what to do with them another day.
Chica Andaluza 
I love ham so that wouldn’t last long chez Hood! Almost as good is the soup from the stock. Enjoy your grumpy ham Chica 🙂
I only saw it was grumpy when I downloaded the photos but it really made me laugh!
Wow, Chica! That looks so flavorful, cloves, chili, cinnamon? Yum! Happy New Year!
Igualmente Amanda!
Ha ha, it does look grumpy, but I bet it tasted good 😉
The photos had me in stitches – there was no “good side” amongst the ones I took 😉
What type of marmalade did you choose? Happy New Year! That’s a great looking ham… 🙂 Shanna
I used my home made orange marmalade – Andalucía is the land of oranges in the autumn and I always have plenty of jars of it!
That sounds absolutely incredible. I have serious food envy at the moment! 🙂 Yes, I remember how common oranges are in Adalucía and other regions of España, as well. The orange sounds like the perfect flavor to compliment the spices!
It was a great combination – and those Andalucían oranges are so good – whether you buy the type for eating, drinking or the bitter ones for marmalade!
Wow, finger licking good!!!
i’m afraid i can’t barely stop diggin into it…..
It didn’t last very long as we kept slicing pieces off!
T – I have always liked the look of this Jamie Oliver recipe http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/turkey-recipes/turkey-and-sweet-leek-pie I think you could easily incorporate left over ham into it with delicious results. – Happy New Year, hope you managed to get enough grapes at midnight, bottled and fresh!! Lynn x x
Hoe funny you should mention that recipe Lynn – our lovely friend in common Maria made that for me and Big Man not so long ago – it was fabulous. Will have to make it again when I do my next ham! We had grapes at 11 listening to the radio from Madrid (got a bit emotional) and then the chimes from Big Ben at 12 and plenty of liquid grapes too. Happy New Year to you!!
Ginger Ale!!! Love it…. mind you I do feel the need to reference Enid Blyton ……. Cx
Oh yes, should have said the recipe ended “lashings of ginger beer” 😉 Although I think that particular expression came from the Comic Strip (brilliant, now I need to track down some episodes on You Tube)!
My ham was so large I had to chop a couple of big chunks off it for the deep freeze to be eaten later. I’m definitely going to try this recipe when I do.
Your ham looks like it’s having a bilious attack, Tanya. Obviously too much to drink over the holidays. 🙂
Yes, a pal of mine cooks a huge one like that too. I have a pot big enough for a big one in Spain, but can’t get the right kind of ham there 😦 Now you mention it, my ham does look a bit “peaky” (as my grandmother used to say)!
Grumpy or not, it looks delicious!!
It made us happy!
It does look delicious! And one does not oft see ginger ale used so, with all the other ingredients, the flavour must be great. [laughing] Now this comment does come from a gal who has never ever cooked a ham in her life, but will surely file the recipe!! And I like the ‘grumpy face’ ~ ‘You dare cut into me and all kinds of awful things will happen to you’ 🙂 !!
Well, I’d heard of recipes coked in coca cola but I didn’t fancy that and I came across a natural ginger ale (although I have made that too myself) so it didn’t feel like I was adding any nasties. Mind you, by the look of his “face” he wasn’t impressed with his fate 😉
Oh, this sounds delicious. Have fun with the renovations today 🙂
Thanks Tandy – the spirit is more ready for it than the old body!
A glazed ham makes me feel really festive and indulgent. I hope you’re having a great start to the New Year.
It smells so special with all the citrus and spices! New year going well so far, hope yours is too!
I reckon you just invented “grumpy ham”…a worthy successor to grumpy cat methinks…just need to get him out there into the blogosphere and going viral on twitter and Facebook and you have it made! I don’t think your most excellent treatment would go down as well on a tofurki do you? ;). Might just leave the ham to the experts and admire from afar 🙂 hope the work is going well. We are “doing the deck” at the moment and are about halfway through the long haul. The rain keeps threatening to come but only because we are working on the deck. I reckon I might ask the farmers around here to pitch in with some readies as I am keeping their crops watered for free…I will keep doing the deck until they want to harvest as sure as eggs, Mr Murphy (my arch nemesis) will keep spattering our deck with rain on a regular basis for the entire time we are attempting to paint! 😉
I could be a Facebook million follower person – but I think I’d rather keep my grumpy ham to myself and all my blog reader pals! Not sure I want to go “viral” 😉 Keep up the good work, you’re all doing very well as old Mr Grace would say (and I just know you’ll understand that!) but I’d probably steer away from the tofurki spiced this way…it ould get very messy 😦
I think Mr Weird Al Yankovic said it best when approaching tofu from a layman’s point of view “he will ONLY eat tofu in the shape of Pat Sajak’s head…” I completely get Mr Grace 😉 I think if you left Grumpy Ham out on your kitchen counter in our hot Aussie heat that he would go viral all on his own! 😉 Have a great albeit cool Sunday ma’am and think of us slowly turning ourselves into smurf’s in the name of “deck painting” 😉
I spent all the holidays wanting a ham meal, and it never happened:) and now I just must have a nice big ham in January! Thanks for the inspiration. Love the favor of your ham, and I agree, it so worth adding a nice glaze to it…btw, I think your ham has a twinkle in its eye:) Happy New Year! Look forward to many more fun posts and delicious servings in 2014…
Ham is good any time of year – and cold in summer with salads is always welcome. For now we’ll enjoy winter hams, especially those with a little twinkle in their eye!
One of my girlfriends used to make the best ham and said she used ginger ale. With your delicious glaze, you ham sounds irresistible and would last long in our house.
It’s the first time I did it this way and it was so good – and the lentils I made afterwards with the ham/ginger stock were delicious too!
Oh ham is my favorite. Never liked turkey so I hated Thanksgiving. But ham is the best. Happy New Year!
I’m with you on the turkey…yuk!
Love the marmalade and ginger ale combo in this. Really a perfect looking ham! Happy 2014, Tanya!
Ah, thanks so much Betsy!
What a gorgeous ham!! And a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday and Happy New Year to you both!! I’ve become quite tired of my meals and would love to try this. Do you need to boil the ham first because it’s not cooked? Here our hams are precooked and smoked.. it’s the only way we can purchase them.xx
Yes, the hams here are uncooked but brined – I think if you just glazed and baked you’d still get something pretty amazing (just not gorgeous stock though).
Right! That stock sounds worth trying!!