Delicious centrepiece for a celebration or use as cold cuts
A traditional recipe for Easter, this gammon with honey and mustard dish is so versatile. Use it as the basis of your roast dinner with potatoes cooked in the extract, or as cold cuts with salad in the warmer months.
In the past, gammon was always boiled as the brine it was preserved in was so salty. Now, brines are not so salty, so a combination of boiling and roasting is fine. Boiling the joint in coca-cola or cider adds flavour to the meat and counteracts any excess saltiness.
NOTE: An uncooked joint is a gammon – the cooked joint is referred to as ham.
Gammon with honey and mustard – Ingredients
- Boneless tied unsmoked gammon joint, 2.5kg
- 2-litre bottle of Coca-cola OR sweet cider (try the Alnwick Brewery’s Lindisfarne Cider)
- 2 tbsp wholegrain mustard
- 2 tablespoons Northumbrian Heather Honey
Gammon with honey and mustard – Method
Put the gammon in a stockpot. Cover the meat with Coca-cola or cider, adding water if necessary. Bring to the boil, cover, and simmer for 1 hour 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave the ham in the liquid for 30 minutes.
Remove from the liquid and cool until you can handle the meat. Remove the thick skin but leave the layer of fat on the ham. Make a criss-cross design in the fat with a sharp knife.
Heat the oven to 200C or gas 6. Put the ham in a roasting tin on a rack. Mix the mustard and honey together, then brush half of it over the ham.
Roast for 15 minutes, then brush over the remaining glaze. Roast for 15-25 minutes until sticky and brown. Keep an eye on the meat – it can burn easily!
Cool for 20 minutes before carving. Serve with roast potatoes (see below) and carrots and brocolli, or cold with pickles and salad.
Gammon roast potatoes
The combination of gammon, honey and wholegrain mustard makes the best roast potatoes. Peel and cut potatoes (Maris Piper or Desiree are good) into odd angles and similar-sized, small shapes. This ensures you get extra crunchy bits.
Put potatoes in a pan of lightly salted cold water and bring to the boil. Parboil for 4 minutes, then drain and shake the pan vigorously to fluff up the potatoes.
Meanwhile, add oil/fat (goose, duck or vegetable oil will do) to the roasting pan the gammon was in, containing the extract from the meat plus the honey and mustard glaze. Cover the bottom with oil – don’t overdo it. Scrape off as much extract from the pan as you can with a scraper to flavour the fat. Heat in the oven on 220C or gas 7.
When the fat is hot, add the potatoes and using a spoon or turkey baster, make sure all surfaces are coated. Cook for 20 minutes, turn the potatoes and baste again, and cook for another 20 minutes, or until crispy and well browned.