Ham help

So I picked up a spiral sliced ham for American Easter (that's what we called it growing up Greek American- there was American Easter and there was just Easter, the Greek Orthodox Easter). I've not served ham before (my Easter guests in the past have all been Jewish vegetarians - seriously). Can I still bake it with a glaze even though it's spiral sliced? The package notes that it should be heated at 325, cut side down and cautions about it drying out. It would take about an hour to come up to temperature. Do I bake it with the glaze the entire hour, or only about 30 minutes as some recipes I've read have indicated? I know the pork intelligence on this site runs deep, so thank you for helping a ham newbie.

I thought the glaze should go on near the end, so it doesn't burn, but we always do lamb, in both leg and cake form (though I believe I recall that you don't like the stuff, so ham makes sense).

Having had many a spiral sliced and glazed ham, I can tell you that since it is already cooked, when you are heating it through you should cover with foil to help reduce moisture loss. Then at the end (last 15-20 mins) you glaze the ham and finish uncovered. And I would heat at 300, for 10 minutes per pound.

I would recommend heating the ham at a much lower temperature. As has been suggested, wrap it tightly in foil or use an oven bag with a couple of slits cut in the sides. Place the ham in a baking dish, cut side down. Bring it up to room temperature, then heat in a 250F oven until the ham is about 100-105 degrees. Pull it out of the oven, but leave it in the baking dish. Residual heat will bring it up to 110-120F in half an hour or less. Throw away the glaze (it's primarily corn syrup) or save it for the kids with a sweet tooth. I usually make a mustard/wine based sauce. Serve it with a dry Riesling or a Cotes du Rhone.

Thanks all for the suggestions. The ham turned out just fine. I made a maple-mustard-brown sugar glaze and it was pretty tasty. Now that I've got one ham under my belt, maybe I can be more adventurous with sauces and glazes next year.

I am thinking about making my first attempt at a ham and I have no idea what to do.

The reason that I am thinking of doing this is that G.F.'s parents are coming into town for xmas; therefore, it seemed logical to try to do a ham for Christmas dinner. This logic has led me into some uncharted waters; I am Jewish and though we never kept kosher there was always something about having a ham for dinner that just seemed a little too....not Jewish. In addition, my father is Greek so when doing any traditional Greek holidays we always had lamb. I have had good ham before but not since leaving the south a number of years ago, and I have had plenty of the pre-cooked, spiral-slice type stuff before and I have never been a big fan. I need more fat and skin in my pork.

So here I am wanting to buy a proper ham and do something really tasty but I don't know where to start let alone finish. Some of my questions are as follows:

1. I know where I can get a ham, there are plenty of meat markets near me that I have called and they do have hams available, but how much ham do 4 people need keeping in mind that leftovers would be a good thing but we all know that you can have too much of a good thing.

2. What cut of ham should I opt for? I know a whole ham would probably be best but come-on there are only 4 of us.

3. I think I want a fresh ham, but then how do I cook it?

Thank you in advance

There is canned ham, spiral cut precooked ham, dry cured ham, injected with stuff whole ham and fresh ham. Except for the first, all will have a bone that is useful for making soup. The cheapest will be the fresh ham, however it will not be cured and will be more like a pork roast than ham. I have seen these at Peoria Packing House for less than a dollar pound. The next cheapest will be the injected with stuff whole ham, this needs some baking and glazing. It is what you will find most often at my house. The spiral cut precooked ham often with a packet of glaze, is pre-cut, some of the work done already, more expensive variant of the injected with stuff whole ham. Dry cured ham needs some trimming, soaking and simmering with maybe a final bake. It will likely be the most expensive and if saltiness is an issue, it will be the most salty. You will need to slice portions very thinly.

I know you question was related to how much to buy for four people. Unless you buy a canned ham in the 2 range, then you will have leftovers. However you can packet them to freeze them in convenient portions for future meals. You may want some for additional flavor for pork and beans or for a shortcut for a midweek meal. Fortunately at this time of year, there is more size range in whole hams than in early summer. I recall LAZ could not find a whole ham under 10 pounds in June last year. She had to buy a substantially larger one than desired because a smaller ham just was not available.

I am probably rattling on rather than being helpful. I have a dry cured ham as a paperweight on my desk presently. I keep postponing my cooking it.

Regards,

gtomaras,

Leave it to a fellow Jew to hop in and offer ham advice. I grew up in a semi-Kosher household (no pork or shellfish was cooked at home, but I was always allowed to eat whatever I wanted elsewhere) and while there was treyf that I always had a fondness for (crab, bacon, etc.) it wasn't until I discovered Virginia Country Ham that I became a huge fan of ham. Real Virginia hams* are a very different beast from a normal spiral-cut ham - they're dry-aged (anywhere from 9-18 month, depending), require no refrigeration (while raw), can be quite salty, and are about the most delicious thing I can think of.

I highly recommend Kite's Hams (540-948-4742) in Wolftown, VA and Calhoun's Hams in Culpeper, VA. Both produce a fine product. On my last trip back to Virginia in September I went and picked up a Kite's ham, thinking I would haul it back with me - turns out they'll UPS ship it to you for like $8 which seemed a lot easier than hauling a ham through TSA ("Sir... we're going to have to check your bag"). I believe that Calhoun's will ship as well.

I either get a whole or half ham whenever I get one (they have lots of options - cooked and deboned, whole or half raw, sliced, etc.). Once I cook it for an event, I pull all the remaining meat off in to .5-1lb hunks, vacuum seal, toss in the chest freezer and pull out as-needed. The bone makes the stock for split-pea soup. A hunk of cooked ham in the fridge keeps for quite a while (I've never had it go bad, but I do assume that at some point it will). I eat slices with breakfast, chop up bits in to salads, steamed veggies, on top of pizzas, etc. etc.

As far as cooking instructions, it depends on which brand you get as to whether it needs to be soaked for a few days (water changes every 12 hours) - neither Calhoun's nor Kite's need to be in my opinion. Once soaked, scrub the mold, pepper, etc. off the outside, simmer in hot water or in a covered roaster in the oven with some liquid until the internal temp hits 160, slice off the skin and as much surface fat as you want, and either let it cool and then eat, or glaze, bake at a high temp to set the glaze, then cool and eat.

I just so happen to have a stash going right now - if you'd like to try some to see if all of this effort is really worth the results, PM me and I'd be happy to share.

All that said, I don't know anything about fresh hams.

-Dan

* You'll often hear the term "Smithfield Ham" which is a little confusing. The town of Smithfield, VA is home to a number of country ham manufacturers, including Smithfield Pork. There used to be laws treating the Smithfield Ham like a DOC (had to be from Smithfield, raised only on peanuts, aged a certain amount, etc.) but they got watered down a long time ago. All the country hams I buy are from producers outside of Smithfield - not taking a stance against Smithfield (the town/DOC, not Smithfield Pork which is a different story), I just happen to really like Kite's and Calhoun's.

Cathy2 wrote: I have a dry cured ham as a paperweight on my desk presently. I keep postponing my cooking it.

For some time I had a ham hanging around my house and it just seemed as though there was no good place (in a small 1-bedroom apartment) to store it... No matter where I put it, guests would always stumble across it, look at my with an odd smile and ask "Is that... a ham?"

I'll admit that I never once thought about using it as a paperweight. A large, awkwardly-shaped and ham-ily aromatic 15lb paperweight...

-Dan

Well if yet another nice Jewish Girl can throw in her 2 cents, in my family when we do ham we just love the spiral sliced on the bone glazed type.

They are simply delish!

Don't worry about leftovers, because this is so good they aren't a problem and do freeze very well.
You can also easily buy a half ham.

I would warm it gently cut side down in a slow (300-325 oven for around an hour and then follow the directions for glazing, which is usually something like 15 minutes at an insanely high heat, or use a (creme brulee type) torch if you have one.

The family loves this when we get it, which we usually get one once a year as a freebie from a relative who sells them....

While the country (Smithfield) type are also good, to me they are more a breakfast than a dinner type ham.

Good luck, and in the the words of the immortal Annie Hall
"good Hammy Grammy"

I hope no Rabbis hang out on this forum.

Dan is completely right about country hams - they are the most delicious food on earth. When I was 2-1/2 years old my folks visited the ancestral family farm near Cape Girardeau, MO and i had my first taste of ham which had been butchered and cured on the farm. I still remember it vividly; I decided on the spot I wouldn't eat anything else for the rest of my life.

That didn't exactly work out, but we have ordered a whole ham every Christmas for the past 25 years or so.
I have a 16lb, one-year-old Kentucky ham resting in the fridge as we speak. I ordered it pre-cooked, because - while cooking is not difficult - you MUST submerge the whole ham COMPLETELY in the cooking water so it doesn't dry out. This implies a helluva big pot to handle what you get, which is basically the back leg of a hog.

This is pretty late, but you could order a cooked and prepped whole ham and probably get it by Wednesday.

http://www.newsomscountryham.com

This ham came to $100 delivered (cheap at twice the price!) and you would have to add something for faster shipping. I had their ham last year, and it is top-notch.

After Christmas, slice the ham up in sandwich-size slices (thin as possible) and chunks to grind up for ham salad, and portion tham, vac-pac the portions, and freeze for at least six months. I had an excellent sandwich last week using some of my saved 2007 Kentucky Christmas ham.

If you're wild and crazy enough to take this plungs, by all means PM me and I will be happy to give you the benefit my many decades of experience with country hams!

Mike

I'm not Jewish, so I don't need to worry about passing rabbis.

MikeLM wrote:I hope no Rabbis hang out on this forum.

I've heard LTH referred to as "jews who eat pork" so it seems fair to think that if a rabbi were looking for members of the Tribe that were straying, this would be a good place to check.

MikeLM wrote:I ordered it pre-cooked, because - while cooking is not difficult - you MUST submerge the whole ham COMPLETELY in the cooking water so it doesn't dry out. This implies a helluva big pot to handle what you get, which is basically the back leg of a hog.

I have to say that the only reason I buy uncooked is that at both Kite's and Calhoun's they charge substantially more for cooked, and I'm cheap. Given the choice, I'd go pre-cooked.

MikeLM wrote:http://www.newsomscountryham.com

I've heard awesome stuff about Newsom's hams, but haven't had one yet. Have you tried their Country Prosciutto?

Perhaps after the holidays we'll have to arrange a ham tasting... put Calhoun's, Kite's and Newsom's up to a blind taste test.

-Dan

I

dansch wrote:This is pretty late, but you could order a cooked and prepped whole ham and probably get it by Wednesday.

It looks like I am going to have to call on Monday morning to see if I can get any of these hams by Wednesday. I was hoping for something more local, but it looks like the good hams come from the South. I am surprised that none of our fine Illinois/Wisconsin/Michigan farmers have a good ham enterprise.

Dan said

Have you tried their Country Prosciutto?
No, I have not, though it does sound interesting. I figured a 16-pound ham was enouigh to handle at one time.

The ham taste-off does sound like fun - if we can round up two or three other smokehouse brands we could have a good time - and I'd like to sample some others. I grew up on the east coast (after my folks left Missouri) so I had Smithfield ham as a kid and youngster. They were pretty good, though I now like the KY and MO hams better. It's my impression that the Smithfields are not hung nearly as long as many of the midwestern hams. I could be wrong.

The thing about Smithfiend hams is that the hogs are finished (not raised exclusively) on peanuts. After the peanut harvest in the Great Dismal Swamp area of Virginia (that's where Chloe got lost) around Peanut City, the hogs are turned into the peanut fields to root out all the peanuts that the harvest missed. They are, apparently, very good at this. After that, it's off to the packing house. I haven't had a Smithfield in many years, so I don't know what the standards are now. It's my impression that they are not hung nearly as long as many of the midwestern hams.

Let's take a LTH roll call of any country hams available for such a tasting and try to put something together not too long after Christmas!

Mike

Personally, I have prepared perhaps fifty country hams when I was working in the business in Virginia. Your choice of country ham in that area is a traditional item. Many people insist on the traditional Smithfield branded country ham. Whether you buy it cooked or uncooked, it is the most expensive and many would argue the finest ham in the state.

However, we used to use Gwaltney hams as the product is nearly as good as the Smithfield hams at a fraction of the cost. Other people will buy the Luter or the Peanut City hams. I think that the key to a good ham is feeding the pigs the peanuts. In the Suffolk area, there are two main crops - pork and peanuts.

I would buy a country ham for Easter but in all fairness, there are perhaps three of my relatives who would appreciate the saltiness of a well-prepared country ham. Periodically, I will purchase a country ham slice or some diced ham for seasoning.

Here is an interesting article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/23/dining/23HAM.html

The idea of a ham taste-off sounds really intriguing to me.
If someone manages to arrange it,
I'd definitely be in, schedule allowing...

Try these guys
http://virginiatraditions.com

Lots of good info on the board about country ham in Chicagoand where to get them. It's a topic each year at Xmas and Easter. As always, the great meat market, Paulina, has Smithfields in stock year round.

I recently discovered that a few dollops of Major Gray's mango chutney really jazz up a ham glaze.