Hello gents. With the holiday season upon us, I was wondering what your favourite method of baking a ham is? I can tell you mine and it is simple beyond belief. I take no credit for it. My wife's aunt taught me to do this and I am sure it is nothing unknown or innovative. The method? Time.
Buy the ham of your choice. I would make one stipulation here. It must be bone in ham or what I call real ham. I also pass on the spiral cut stuff. Just a nice, shank or full ham. For us it usually means whatever is on sale at the local grocer's. Take the ham and chuck it in a roaster pan with a good fitting cover or lid. You must keep the ham sealed away from the dry heat of the oven. If your ham is well smoked I don't think you need any other seasoning.
Starting at around10:00PM the night before you want to serve it, have a pre heated oven of around 375F/gas mark 5 ready. Place the ham in the oven(make sure one last time it sealed well) and set a timer for one hour. This gets the ham and the bone in it hot. After one hour or so reduce the temperature to something like 190F. This is something less than gas mark 1/2 and if you have a modern stove with digital readout it would be more like 95C. Leave the ham in the oven all night. One thing you must NOT do is bake at hot temperatures. TIME is your friend here, not heat. Keep that temperature under 200 if you don't want slighty scorched flavoured ham! f you serve Thanksgiving dinner at midday like we do, then I suggest removing the ham from the oven about 1-2hours before serving. The ham will have nearly a candied flavour to it if all goes well. We bone ours out and the meat is so tender it comes off in small chunks rather than sliced pieces. We love it this way. It never seems to fail the diners.
Anyway, that is our little method. It does have drawbacks. If you have one oven as we do, then making other items is impossible. You can use one of those 18 quart Nesco roasters ovens but I caution you; KEEP IT SEALED somehow. They are quite prone to leakage and will allow meat dishes to dry out severely if left unattended for too long. A thorough covering of heavy aluminium foil before placing the cover on it is in order. And watch the temperatures. My experience is that they run hot for their temp settings. Probably best to keep the ham off the bottom of the roaster pan as well since the elements sit directly against the pan's bottom. Hope this little idea helps someone out.
Regards, Todd
Buy the ham of your choice. I would make one stipulation here. It must be bone in ham or what I call real ham. I also pass on the spiral cut stuff. Just a nice, shank or full ham. For us it usually means whatever is on sale at the local grocer's. Take the ham and chuck it in a roaster pan with a good fitting cover or lid. You must keep the ham sealed away from the dry heat of the oven. If your ham is well smoked I don't think you need any other seasoning.
Starting at around10:00PM the night before you want to serve it, have a pre heated oven of around 375F/gas mark 5 ready. Place the ham in the oven(make sure one last time it sealed well) and set a timer for one hour. This gets the ham and the bone in it hot. After one hour or so reduce the temperature to something like 190F. This is something less than gas mark 1/2 and if you have a modern stove with digital readout it would be more like 95C. Leave the ham in the oven all night. One thing you must NOT do is bake at hot temperatures. TIME is your friend here, not heat. Keep that temperature under 200 if you don't want slighty scorched flavoured ham! f you serve Thanksgiving dinner at midday like we do, then I suggest removing the ham from the oven about 1-2hours before serving. The ham will have nearly a candied flavour to it if all goes well. We bone ours out and the meat is so tender it comes off in small chunks rather than sliced pieces. We love it this way. It never seems to fail the diners.
Anyway, that is our little method. It does have drawbacks. If you have one oven as we do, then making other items is impossible. You can use one of those 18 quart Nesco roasters ovens but I caution you; KEEP IT SEALED somehow. They are quite prone to leakage and will allow meat dishes to dry out severely if left unattended for too long. A thorough covering of heavy aluminium foil before placing the cover on it is in order. And watch the temperatures. My experience is that they run hot for their temp settings. Probably best to keep the ham off the bottom of the roaster pan as well since the elements sit directly against the pan's bottom. Hope this little idea helps someone out.
Regards, Todd
