In the Kitchen - Glazed Gammon

This particular dish is only prepared over the festive season in our household. It is to Christmas what easter eggs are to easter.

This is a fairly simple process and takes around two hours to complete and the finished dish can be eaten warm or cold. We prepare it the day before Christmas and eat it cold on the day but it must be borne in mind that here in Cape Town it averages around 30 degrees Celsius ( 86 degrees Fahrenheit) in December so we mostly eat cold meats and salads

Place the deboned gammon in a large pot with sufficient water to cover it. Add two or three carrots, a half an onion, two or three cloves and some bay leaves and bring the water to a boil.

Once boiling, reduce heat to a simmer and allow to cook for 20 minutes per 400gm’s (14 Oz.) then add another 20 minutes. So ONE kilogram (35.2oz) gammon would be 70 minutes total cooking time.

Cooked, and vegetables discarded. Remove from pot and cut string off and remove the thick rind but keep a layer of fat.

Drain a can of pineapple rings and half some kirsch cherries and dress the gammon by inserting toothpicks through the pineapple pieces and cherries and ‘skewering’ them to the gammon as shown in the picture below.

Now to create the glaze you can get fairly creative, but we used brown sugar, apricot jam and Dijon mustard.

Mix these together until a runny syrup consistency

Spoon the glaze mixture over the gammon until the complete upper surface is covered.

Switch on the oven grill and when hot, place the gammon on a dish which can withstand heat. Place the gammon under the grill and once the glaze mix starts melting, baste the gammon continuously

When the pineapple is a nice golden brown the gammon is optimal and can be removed from the oven. If serving hot, let it rest for 10 minutes and then carve.

Bon Appetite