Ham for the Holidays

[DallasLady]

Ok, I need some help making a ham for Christmas. Do any of you have some tried and true recipes or tricks for making a good ham? I have a frozen bone-in ready-to-cook ham that I want to use. My MIL says she only likes hams from Honey Baked, so I need to wow her (and the 15 other people I will be feeding).

[andrew&shannah]

I've made:

Blackberry-Mustard Glazed Ham
1 (5-pound) 33%-less-sodium smoked, fully-cooked, bone-in ham half
Cooking spray
1/2 cup apple juice
1 (13-ounce) jar blackberry preserves
1 (7.3-ounce) jar whole-grain Dijon mustard

Preheat oven to 350°.
Trim fat and rind from ham. Score outside of ham in a diamond pattern. Place ham on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray.

Combine juice, preserves, and mustard in a medium bowl, stirring until well combined. Set aside half of preserves mixture.

Bake ham at 350° for 1 1/2 hours or until a thermometer registers 140°, basting with half of preserves mixture every 20 minutes. Remove ham from oven. Place ham on a platter; cover and let stand 15 minutes before slicing.

Place reserved preserves mixture in a large nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Cook until reduced to 1 cup (about 15 minutes). Serve sauce with ham.

Yield: 20 servings (serving size: 3 ounces ham and about 2 teaspoons sauce)

NUTRITION PER SERVING
CALORIES 185(27% from fat); FAT 5.6g (sat 1.6g,mono 2.3g,poly 0.5g); PROTEIN 18.3g; CHOLESTEROL 45mg; CALCIUM 15mg; SODIUM 1011mg; FIBER 1g; IRON 1.5mg; CARBOHYDRATE 14.8g

Cranberry-Glazed Ham
1 (7-pound) 33%-less-sodium smoked, fully cooked ham half
1/2 cup whole-berry cranberry sauce
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon spicy brown mustard

Preheat oven to 325°.
Place ham on a broiler pan lined with foil. Insert meat thermometer into thickest portion of pork. Bake at 325° for 1 hour. Score outside of ham in a diamond pattern. Combine cranberry sauce, sugar, and mustard; brush over ham. Bake an additional 35 minutes or until thermometer registers 140°. Transfer ham to a platter; let stand 10 minutes before slicing.

Yield: 25 servings (serving size: 3 ounces)

NUTRITION PER SERVING
CALORIES 173(57% from fat); FAT 11g (sat 4g,mono 5.2g,poly 1.7g); PROTEIN 13g; CHOLESTEROL 46mg; CALCIUM 2mg; SODIUM 96mg; FIBER 0.0g; IRON 0.8mg; CARBOHYDRATE 5.2g


Both hams came out great and everyone really like the flavors :)

[KrissyCat7]

This is the glaze I use and it is so good.

Orange Glaze

1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup orange juice
Grated peel of 1 orange or tsp. dried orange peel
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

[Katyanne]

This is Alton Brown's (From the food network) ham Glaze recipe that I think I'm going to try this year. I've watched that episode so many times and it always looks so good.

1 city style (brined) ham, hock end*
1/4 cup brown mustard
2 cups dark brown sugar
1-ounce bourbon (poured into a spritz bottle)
2 cups crushed ginger snap cookies

Heat oven to 250 degrees F.
Remove ham from bag, rinse and drain thoroughly. Place ham, cut side down, in a roasting pan. Using a small paring knife or clean utility knife set to the smallest blade setting, score the ham from bottom to top, spiraling clockwise as you cut. (If you're using a paring knife, be careful to only cut through the skin and first few layers of fat). Rotate the ham after each cut so that the scores are no more than 2-inches across. Once you've made it all the way around, move the knife to the other hand and repeat, spiraling counter clockwise. The aim is to create a diamond pattern all over the ham. (Don't worry too much about precision here.)

Tent the ham with heavy duty foil, insert a thermometer, and cook for 3 to 4 hours or until the internal temperature at the deepest part of the meat registers 130 degrees F.

Remove and use tongs to pull away the diamonds of skin and any sheets of fat that come off with them.

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

Dab dry with paper towels, then brush on a liberal coat of mustard, using either a basting brush or a clean paint brush (clean as in never-touched paint). Sprinkle on brown sugar, packing loosely as you go until the ham is coated. Spritz this layer lightly with bourbon, then loosely pack on as much of the crushed cookies as you can.

Insert the thermometer (don't use the old hole) and return to the oven (uncovered). Cook until interior temperature reaches 140 degrees F, approximately 1 hour.

Let the roast rest for 1/2 hour before carving.

*Cook's note: A city ham is basically any brined ham that's packed in a plastic bag, held in a refrigerated case and marked "ready to cook", "partially cooked" or "ready to serve". Better city hams are also labeled "ham in natural juices".

[skb]

WHat does "score" mean? Thanks in advance.

[myshel]

The "scores" are the places where you've cut through the surface of the ham, but not completely through the meat.

[myshel]

This is a Paula Deen recipe. We made something very similar to this a few years ago, and it was devine.

Cola-Basted Ham

1 (18-pound) cured ham
2 (12-ounce) cans cola
Canned pineapple rings
Brown sugar
Maraschino cherries
Cloves


Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
Place ham in a shallow roasting pan. Baste the ham with cola. With toothpicks, stick some pineapple rings on the ham, about 4 or 5 rings. Sprinkle some brown sugar on the rings. With toothpicks, place a cherry in each pineapple ring hole and then stick some cloves in the rings. Cover it with foil. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes per pound of ham, or until the ham reaches an internal temperature of 140 degrees F. Baste with cola about every 30 minutes during cooking.

From Food Network (http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_24443,00.html)

[Missy2U]

Mine is kind of simple, but it is tasty. I score the ham, insert cloves, pat the entire ham with brown sugar, add the pineapple, then baste it with the remaining pineapple juice and ginger ale.

[singerwife]

WHat does "score" mean? Thanks in advance.

Scoring is cutting the outer fat layer, so it doesn't pull or curl the meat when it cooks/expands. It's usually the diamond-shaped pattern with cloves.

[gayle]

This thread is making me hungry for ham :)

[usafwife]

When we've had ham for Christmas (or Easter) we just use the glaze that comes with the ham (we usually get a Cook's bone-in ham). However lately we have to have two different meats because DH won't eat ham (he'll eat other types of pork but won't touch ham with a ten foot pole).