As has always been tradition in our family, no Christmas is complete without a huge gammon joint to cook at Christmas that means you're eating gammon sandwiches until it comes out of your ears! This year is no exception just because we're on our own for Christmas; my Nan had given me a big gammon joint which had been taking up a drawer in our freezer pretty much entirely!
Once defrosted, I followed the Hairy Bikers recipe to cook it in my swish new stock pot which I bought on Amazon for a bargain £20! I had seen that Wilko did them even cheaper but had run out in our local shop in Newbury so Amazon was a safer bet. The stock pot came with a lovely glass lid too. The hairy bikers' recipe said to place the gammon joint in the stock pot and cover with cold water, bring to the boil and then pour away the water.
It then said to add two carrots, two celery sticks, two onions, a small handful of peppercorns and 4 bay leaves to the gammon, re-cover with cold water and bring to the boil again. You then needed to reduce the heat and cook for a further 20 minutes per 500g (this joint was almost 4 kg).
I then removed the gammon joint from the water - the remaining water would make a fab stock base for soup! I cut off the netting and removed the rind really carefully to leave as much fat behind as possible. I then scored the gammon, pressed cloves in (not loads because I don't want the cloves to be too overpowering), drizzled with lots of honey and a sprinkle of soft brown sugar too (not on the recipe but Mum always added this to her gammon joints before the oven stage). It then went into the oven (at 200 degrees) for 10 minutes, I re-basted and cooked for a further 20 minutes, re-basting every 10 minutes.
Cloves smell amazing!
It tastes absolutely delicious and I hardly waited for it to cool before slicing myself some off! It's nice and juicy and just the right amount of sweetness from the honey too. We have got gammon, duck egg and chips for dinner tonight, gammon sandwiches for lunch tomorrow too and we'll keep eating it so hopefully none goes to waste! I'll also use it in my leftovers pies that I make post-Christmas (turkey, ham and leek pie is my favourite).
Hope you're all set for Christmas!
Em x
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