What's better than a good, cheap ham?

LTH,

We arrived home Sunday afternmoon, and after our trip to the country and our D & J Bistro debacle, I was in serious need of something comforting.

There was a shank end smoked ham from Fairplay in the fridge. I Placed it in a pan and slathered it heavily with dijon mustard and then packed as much brown sugar as possible on it. Poured a few cups of orange juice in the pan and dropped in a few whole cloves. In the oven, uncovered at 325 for three hours.

I don't have to tell you that after an hour or so, the aroma will drive you crazy. And that lovely, almost burnt, crispy ham fat! Is there anything better?

To go along with the ham, I made that classic southern cafeteria style green peas with cheese salad, and buttermilk biscuits. Sliced a few tomatoes from last week's Federal Plaza market.

But it's only the two of us, and to tell you the truth, we get tired of ham after a day or two, so I routinely make a ham salad on the third day or so.

After removing the meat from the bone, I coarsley chop the ham in the processor, being careful not to make mush out of it (Working in small batches, and pulsing four-five-six times or so). In the same workbowl without washing, I then chop pickled watermelon rind and Sechler's candied gerkins. Dress with mayo, black pepper, cayenne, Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco. That's it.

This ham salad is almost better than the ham itself. Make your own from scratch, and you'll never consider buying it again.

Ron,

My Mom swears up and down the ham salad in the grocery store is made of bologna. She buys it every so often, then hides it in the refrigerator to keep it for hefself. Her favored variant always has chopped sweet pickle in it.

I love cheap ham baked with a glaze of mustard, brown sugar and orange marmalade is a meal fit for a crowd. For two people it can be overwhelming.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:My Mom swears up and down the ham salad in the grocery store is made of bologna. She buys it every so often, then hides it in the refrigerator to keep it for hefself. Her favored variant always has chopped sweet pickle in it.

Generally, what is sold as ham salad in a lot of stores is ground end cuts of lunch meats (hams, bologna, etc.). It gets rid of meat that would otehrwise be thrown away.

My MIL makes bologna salad which is pretty good ... and I don't generally eat bologna.

I don't recall who it was, but someone once described eternity as two persons and one ham.

"What's better than a good, cheap ham?"

How about a FREE ham. Caputo's in Elmwood Park was giving them away yesterday if you spent over $100 in groceries. Not sure exactly what I'm going to do with it. About 8 lbs and frozen solid.

Hi,

For yesterday's snow storm, I cooked the ham intended as plan B for Christmas dinner. I do need to report on Plan A sometime soon.

I never buy spiral cut hams, I buy ham. In my e-mail box just before Christmas, Cook's Illustrated provided information on cooking spiral cut hams. I forwarded it to a friend who was making a whole ham, because maybe some of their ideas might apply. She raved about her ham being so moist and succulent, which she attributed to where she bought her ham.

I had el cheapo ham from Jewel, which was available for a reduced price once you purchased $30. Yes, I do adore my cheap protein fixes around the holidays. Plus I really did need a Plan B in case Plan A failed.

Yesterday, I decided to cook my ham as if it were a spiral cut ham per CI's instructions. There is no take it from the refrigerator and drop it in the oven. Nope, you begin by placing the ham in hot tap water for 90 minutes, with a water change at 45 minutes. This gentle preheating saves 10 minutes per pound when you bake it.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees (I used 275, because I forgot the target temp). Meanwhile place your ham in an oven bag, then gather it tightly to the ham and close. Cut a few slits near the top to release steam.

Once the ham reached 100 degrees internal temperature, then you added a glaze. I skipped the glaze, just as I had skipped trimming the ham. There was quite a bit of liquid in the pan.

Reset the temperature to 350 degrees, then return the ham for ten minutes. If you used a glaze, then you were waiting for the glaze to feel tacky. Remove, add more glaze, then serve after a 15 minute rest.

I was impressed by this ham in the same way my friend was with hers. While this method of cooking is specified for a spiral cut ham. It works well with a standard ham, especially for keeping it moist.

I will follow Ron's footsteps to make some delicious ham salad.

Regards,

I have used that C I method several times to great effect for Greek Easter (along with a leg of lamb on my Weber kettle rotisserie). I get a plain spiral cut ham at Paulina and make my own glaze.

No love for ham bone soup?
That's a must for me with leftover ham.

zoid wrote:No love for ham bone soup?
That's a must for me with leftover ham.

Love, much love!

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:Yesterday, I decided to cook my ham as if it were a spiral cut ham per CI's instructions. There is no take it from the refrigerator and drop it in the oven. Nope, you begin by placing the ham in hot tap water for 90 minutes, with a water change at 45 minutes. This gentle preheating saves 10 minutes per pound when you bake it.

Ha, this reminds me of a holiday for which I planned to make a ham following this recipe (can't remember if it was spiral-cut or not). Took the ham out of the fridge, put it in hot tap water in the sink, left instructions with family and house guests to LEAVE IT ALONE, and went out to run some errands.

Came back 45 minutes later to find cold ham sitting on counter next to empty sink. What wasn't clear, I asked, about LEAVE IT ALONE ? Houseguests said, we let the water out right after you left because you must not have noticed that the ham was already thawed.

What's better,

A real hickory smoked, unsliced, no-water added, bone-in, shank portion ham from a local source for under $6/pound.

zoid wrote:No love for ham bone soup?
That's a must for me with leftover ham.

I'm in it for the bean and bone soup!

Tim wrote:What's better,

A real hickory smoked, unsliced, no-water added, bone-in, shank portion ham from a local source for under $6/pound.

I do both, though I am not going to turn away a 15 pound ham for less than $10 final cost to me.

Regards,

stevez wrote:

zoid wrote:No love for ham bone soup?
That's a must for me with leftover ham.

I'm in it for the bean and bone soup!

On its own, I only like ham as a lunch meat or charcuterie, but, yeah, as an ingredient, either the bone or the meat, sign me up!

Hi,

At the Gurnee Honey Glazed Ham shop sells ham bones leftover from making sandwiches. I never bought one, though they run about $5 a bone or so with lots of meat hanging off of it. A clerk advised in summer, they have excess bones which they sell two-for-one.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

At the Gurnee Honey Glazed Ham shop sells ham bones leftover from making sandwiches. I never bought one, though they run about $5 a bone or so with lots of meat hanging off of it. A clerk advised in summer, they have excess bones which they sell two-for-one.

Regards,

The best "stand alone" ham bones I've ever run into are the huge smoked numbers sold at Joseph's Finest Meats on Addison.

stevez wrote:

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

At the Gurnee Honey Glazed Ham shop sells ham bones leftover from making sandwiches. I never bought one, though they run about $5 a bone or so with lots of meat hanging off of it. A clerk advised in summer, they have excess bones which they sell two-for-one.

Regards,

The best "stand alone" ham bones I've ever run into are the huge smoked numbers sold at Joseph's Finest Meats on Addison.

I did not know about either of these

I don't recall who it was, but someone once described eternity as two persons and one ham.

We'll give this the ol' 8-year update: it's an old Swedish proverb. Damn accurate, too.

I've been eating what I consider great, cheap ham daily by ordering the $6 Eastman at Eastman Egg Company, Wacker near Washington. Piled high with Slagel country ham, which I'd say is actually about 1/2 way to a great city ham a la Paulina Market or Mike's/Dearborn in Detroit, as it's presented by Eastman. So call it town n' country ham. The bread, cheese and egg are also terrific. If you haven't stopped into this storefront yet, do.

Been on a breakfast sandwich kick after a lifetime of no breakfast and this is top 2, along with the Roost's biscuit-based sammies. Leghorn in the Ohio House was, unfortunately, a let down of tough ham on a tougher biscuit.

What's MUCH better is a smoked, aged country ham from a good smokehouse down south - 16 pounds of hog's back leg, hide and all. Butchered, buried in salt for ten days, smoked for two days, and hung to dry for a year. THAT'S a ham! We order one each Christmas, and knaw on it for couple months, then slice and freeze what's left - thin for sandwiches, medium for frying, and chunks for ham salad - for good eats most of the rest of the year. Once you do that, you're spoiled for deli and spiral ham forever.

OK, so it's not too cheap, but that doesn't matter. We're having some tomorrow. About two weeks to cutting up and freezing. Then, the bone goes in to a large vat of pea soup.

Where do you get it, Mike?

Geo

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

At the Gurnee Honey Glazed Ham shop sells ham bones leftover from making sandwiches. I never bought one, though they run about $5 a bone or so with lots of meat hanging off of it. A clerk advised in summer, they have excess bones which they sell two-for-one.

Regards,

I have bought many ham bones at the Honeybaked ham. They always gave me a pretty good deal as I would buy 15-20 box lunches for my staff.

You can count on about 2# of ham for sandwiches on each bone.

My grandmother would buy just a ham. No spiral cut I don't think they had them then. After eating the ham she made ham salad in her meat grinder the old fashioned kind. It was ground ham, mayo, onions and celery and seasonings. Very good. She would then make a pea or bean soup from the ham bone and leftover cut up ham.

Where do you get it, Mike?

Geo,

I order it from a smokehouse down south. For thirty-plus years from Esicar's Smokehouse in Cape Girardeau near where my father grew up an a cattle farm in southeast Missouri. (His family raised their own hogs, slaughtered and cured thm. Sadly, the Esiicars retired a few years ago and I've been searching for a good supplier.

I tried Colonel Newsome's Country hams in Kentuckey for a few years, and this year tried one from Tennessee, which wasn't as good. I'll probably go back to Newsome's this Christmas.

Like any luxury item these things vary wildly in quality and price. Back in the day, Esicar's 16-pound whole ham ran around $60 delivered. Newsome's is around $100, and the one from Tennessee was $80. The instructions for Esicar's and Newsome's are to completely submerge the ham in water and simmer for four or five hours. Then remove, cool, take off skin, score fat side in a diamond pattern, rub with a brown sugar-orange juice slurry, stud the fatty side with whole cloves, and bake long enough to heat through for service.

Our Tennessee ham said don't simmer it- just cut into slices and cook them as desired. The flavor is fine, but every way I've tried cooking it, it's tough as nails. The catch to simmering it completely covered in water is its' size- you need a really big pot. Most suppliers will cook it for you for a modest charge, which is what we've done the last few years. We'll be going back to that option.

If you don't have too many people for Christmas dinner, you should have a lot left for months of snacking. It's so cured it keeps in the fridge for months, and if you get nervous, finish slicing it up and freeze in 1-serving vacpacs. If you exercise a little self-restraint, it will last until next's year's ham arrives. (Ours never does, though.)

If you're a fan of honey-cured, spiral-sliced "Ham," though, this is not for you. Just stick with your candy ham. This is all about salt and smoke.

Proper, aged country ham has been my absolute favorite food since I was four years old and first tasted it at the family farm.

Mike,

I know about country ham--42 yrs in Kansas City will do that to a guy! Plus, I lived two years in Bowling Green KY and learned a whole bunch more about it, and tasted all sorts. Kentucky has some great hams. I found this link to the food guy at the Courier-Journal, who's written a book about country ham. Each Christmas my brother--who lives in Virginia--sends me a selection of slices and chunks of "Surryano" country ham, which is pretty damn good--you might want to give them a try. I eat it like serrano: uncooked.

Tnx for all the info!

Geo

Geo

Well, yeah that looks nice, but for $60 a pound, it ought to be pretty good!