Waiting For The Sun!
Something I hear a reasonable amount is “I haven’t barbecued much this year as it hasn’t really been sunny”. As someone that not only enjoys
Christmas isn’t Christmas without a turkey, yet it is not most peoples favourite thing to eat. Unless of course you have smoked the turkey in which case it is delicious! However to supplement this tasteless meat we also like to cook the Christmas Ham, delicious, juicy, tender, TASTY and if done right smoky Honey Glazed Ham. You can off course use maple syrup, honey & mustard, mustard and brown sugar, a whole plethora (yes I’ve been reading), a plethora of drizzles to enhance your ham but I went with honey as honey and pig is a match made in Devon.
So this year I took inspiration from the Internet and did something a little different. I took a gammon and boiled it into a ham. Why? The flavour that you can add to it whilst boiling it and the stock that is left over. So, I covered the gammon in cold water and added half a yellow pepper, a red onion, some garlic cloves, two cinnamon sticks and some bay leaves and absolutely NO SALT, it is a gammon after all. I brought the pot up to a boil then simmered it for around an hour and hey presto, a delicious and juicy ham.
I then removed the skin keeping the fat on, then lightly scored the fat basically using the weight of the knife in a diamond pattern and studded each segment with a whole clove. This is a bit time consuming but worth it, just look at it!
Next to make up the glaze. Add a bunch of liquid honey (half a jar), a decent glug of red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar and a handful of demerara (I spelled that right first time) sugar to a pan and bring to a boil then simmer whilst stirring. For this next step you definitely want to use a disposable pan (sorry tree huggers) as the glaze will stick to the pan like shi…(you know the rest) during cooking. Place the delicious, tender, juicy ham into the pan and drizzle half of the glaze on, place it in your smoker / barbecue (if you’re using an oven stop reading now) at around 160 Celsius for 15 to 20 minutes to let the glaze set. Then apply the rest of the glaze which should have firmed up a bit and attach itself to the glaze that is already on the ham, genius. I then turned the Traeger up using the Traeger App (as I forgot to do it whilst I was there) to 180 Celcius and gave it another 35 to 40 minutes basting it every 12 minutes or so.
Did it work? You bet it did. It was juicy, delicious, tender, full of flavour but not overly smoky. I think for the one that I actually cook for Christmas I will have it on Super Smoke for the first 15 minutes, it has to be below 110 C to have this feature on. I would then add the first glaze, cook for 15 minutes at 160 C and then add the second glaze and cook out at 180 C basting it every 10 minutes until done, just to get a bit more smoke on it.
So get on and cook yours, it’s much better than turkey and a doddle to do!!! Should I smoke some festive beef next week? Let me know.
Something I hear a reasonable amount is “I haven’t barbecued much this year as it hasn’t really been sunny”. As someone that not only enjoys
As you can imagine I get asked this question a few times in a week and in fairness for the person just getting into their coffee it is a fair question.
So with the introduction of The Coffee Shack to The Barbecue Shack business I thought I would run a quick demo on making an Americano on our Gaggia Classic demo machine.
“What?” I hear you cry. “Why?” I also hear people crying. Why not I say. My Father-in-Law insists on buying meat from dubious sources and bringing it home for me to deal with, almost like a challenge!
Something I hear a reasonable amount is “I haven’t barbecued much this year as it hasn’t really been sunny”. As
As you can imagine I get asked this question a few times in a week and in fairness for the person just getting into their coffee it is a fair question.
So with the introduction of The Coffee Shack to The Barbecue Shack business I thought I would run a quick demo on making an Americano on our Gaggia Classic demo machine.