New Year, New Blog

Happy New Year one and all.  I have been absent from the blogosphere for a few years now and have been using other avenues to share my passion for food.  More on that later.  However I have decided that in order to share what I want I need to put in a consistent effort.  I have therefore launched Tim’s Kitchen Table to allow me to share recipes, products, vendors and my activities in the world of food with you.  I will be producing new material and have included selected posts from my prior blog.

New Years dinner is one of my favourite of the year.  To me it has always been (except for an unfortunate culinary diversion into the kosher world) about ham and all the trimmings.  Today I baked and glazed a beautiful free range Ham from my friends at Shani’s Farm.  I also cooked up some scalloped potatoes, sweet potato mash with peas, honey glazed carrots and fresh baked sweet potato rolls.  I served this with Benjamin Bridge’s Nova 7.  A beautiful sparking wine that is a must try.

I much prefer a bone in cured and smoked ham sourced from a local farmer that I trust.  I encourage you all to get to know your local farmers, you will find the best products.  I start the process by soaking the skin and membrane (this is put in place during the curing and smoking process) with a half a cup of Jim Beam Bourbon and then put it into a 350 degree oven for between one and a half and two hours.  This is done with the skin an membrane intact to allow the fat to baste the meat. 

After that is done I take the ham out of the oven and allow it to cool enough to handle.  I then trim the skin and membrane with a very sharp knife leaving the remaining fat intact.  Next I score the fat in a diamond pattern and brush it with a glaze.  Some people put whole clove in the middle of the diamond however as attractive as this is, I find it adds an overpowering clove flavour to the meat that I do not enjoy.  I advise you leave this out.

The glaze I used today was 1/3 of a cup of brown sugar, 1/3 of a cup of honey and 1/3 of a cup of orange juice.  I simmered this until it is a light syrup.

I then brushed the ham with the glaze and returned it to a 350 degree oven.  Every 10 minutes I brushed the ham liberally with glaze and did this for 40 minutes.  A larger ham should be glazed every 20 minutes for an hour to an hour and a half. 

Remove the ham from the oven, allow it to rest and then carve and serve with your chosen side dishes.  There are a few steps here but following this process will give you a moist ham with a sweet flavourful glazed exterior.

Please try it and enjoy.

My next post will be about my amazing experience cooking Christmas dinner for the clients,staff and volunteers at Stepping Stone, a fantastic organization that provides support services for Sex Workers.  I used this ham recipe for their Christmas party dinner. One of the best experiences I could have had.