Baked ham with maple syrup and honey glaze
The traditions of Christmas in regards to food often revolve around shared food that has additional flourishes. These flourishes turn everyday food into a celebration. This is very true for a baked ham. This centre piece dish is a family favourite. My younger brother insists on bringing one each year. Every year he tries a different glaze. They are all based around savoury and sweet. The sugar caramelising into a rich, sticky foil against the salty meat underneath.
It is important to keep as much fat on the leg as possible, when you remove the skin. The fat, along with the glaze, forms the caramelisation, and keeps the meet moist and succulent.
With the ham usually weighing 3-8 kgs, there is always left overs. To care for your ham, keep it in a ham-bag or wrap it in a damp tea-towel in the fridge. Before using the bag, soak in a mix of 1 litre of water to 2 tablespoons of white vinegar. Squeeze out the excess liquid to leave the bag damp. For the best results, repeat the process every few days. Remember to wrap your ham loosely to allow for air circulation, and place it in the coolest part of the fridge soon after serving. The bone can be frozen for up to 6 months and is perfect for pea and ham soup.
The skin, carefully removed is not great for making crackling due to the smoking process that the ham has undergone. That doesn't stop my little brother from trying though!
Be careful when serving the ham. Cloves have a very strong flavour, and have an unpleasant taste if bitten into. Cloves are the dried flower bud from the clove tree. They have some medicinal uses including treatment for toothache pain, stress relief and inflammation reduction of arthritis but are very strong in flavour. Most medicinal uses use clove oil or ground cloves.
My Youtube video below shows all the tricks in getting the diamond pattern decoration.
Serves 10+
Recipe
1 whole leg ham on the bone
100 g brown sugar
80 ml maple syrup
80 ml honey
1 tbl Dijon mustard
Whole cloves
In a small bowl, combine sugar, maple syrup, honey and mustard.
Preheat oven to 170° C. Line a large baking dish with 2 layers of non-stick baking paper. Put a rack on the paper.
Use a sharp knife to cut around the shank of the ham, about 10 cm from the end. Run a knife under the rind around edge of ham. Gently lift the rind off in 1 piece by running your fingers between the rind and the fat.
Score the fat in a diamond pattern, about 5 mm deep. Stud the centres of the diamonds with cloves. Transfer onto rack in the prepared dish.
Brush with 1/3 of the maple syrup mixture. Bake, brushing with glaze every 25 minutes, for 1 hour 30 minutes. You may need to cover the shank of the leg with tinfoil during the cooking process if it is drying out too much.
updated June 2023
With the ham usually weighing 3-8 kgs, there is always left overs. To care for your ham, keep it in a ham-bag or wrap it in a damp tea-towel in the fridge. Before using the bag, soak in a mix of 1 litre of water to 2 tablespoons of white vinegar. Squeeze out the excess liquid to leave the bag damp. For the best results, repeat the process every few days. Remember to wrap your ham loosely to allow for air circulation, and place it in the coolest part of the fridge soon after serving. The bone can be frozen for up to 6 months and is perfect for pea and ham soup.
The skin, carefully removed is not great for making crackling due to the smoking process that the ham has undergone. That doesn't stop my little brother from trying though!
Be careful when serving the ham. Cloves have a very strong flavour, and have an unpleasant taste if bitten into. Cloves are the dried flower bud from the clove tree. They have some medicinal uses including treatment for toothache pain, stress relief and inflammation reduction of arthritis but are very strong in flavour. Most medicinal uses use clove oil or ground cloves.
My Youtube video below shows all the tricks in getting the diamond pattern decoration.
Serves 10+
Recipe
1 whole leg ham on the bone
100 g brown sugar
80 ml maple syrup
80 ml honey
1 tbl Dijon mustard
Whole cloves
In a small bowl, combine sugar, maple syrup, honey and mustard.
Preheat oven to 170° C. Line a large baking dish with 2 layers of non-stick baking paper. Put a rack on the paper.
Use a sharp knife to cut around the shank of the ham, about 10 cm from the end. Run a knife under the rind around edge of ham. Gently lift the rind off in 1 piece by running your fingers between the rind and the fat.
Score the fat in a diamond pattern, about 5 mm deep. Stud the centres of the diamonds with cloves. Transfer onto rack in the prepared dish.
Brush with 1/3 of the maple syrup mixture. Bake, brushing with glaze every 25 minutes, for 1 hour 30 minutes. You may need to cover the shank of the leg with tinfoil during the cooking process if it is drying out too much.
updated June 2023
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