Glorious, glorious ham! My favorite holiday meal, hands down. I live for ham. I usually make it like my mom does, with a brown sugar and pineapple glaze. I also make her homemade rolls, corn, mashed potatoes, and ham gravy for the sides. I recommend avoiding spiral cut hams, they dry out too easily!
To make homemade buns, check out one of my bread recipes:
The recipe for the ham and gravy are here, and pictures of the process are below:
Ingredients:
Ham:
4-20 lb. (2-9 kg) smoked ham with bone in
Sliced pineapple in pineapple juice (2 8 oz./ cans for a 4-7 lb. ham, 1 20 oz. can for 8-12 lb. ham, and more for a >13 lb. ham)
1/2 to 1 cup brown sugar (1/2 cup for 4-7 lb. ham, 3/4 cup for 8-12 lb. ham, 1 cup for >13 lb. ham)
Ham Gravy:
2 Tbsp. cornstarch (or 1 Tbsp. for small ham, 3 Tbsp. for large ham)
1/4 cup water
1/4 to 1/2 cup milk
Directions:
Properly thaw ham if frozen, this could take 2-5 days depending on the size. Read instructions for how long to cook per pound of ham, this is a guideline, and will differ with your oven and how often you baste the ham.
Line a baking pan with 3 layers of tin foil.
Preheat oven to 325°F.
Place the ham on a cutting board (if scoring) and drain any excess liquid in the packaging into the lined baking pan.
Optional: Slice lines about ½ inch deep all along ham, creating a diamond pattern in the fatty parts of the ham. Then place the ham in the roasting pan.
Heat up a pan on the stove top on medium-low heat with brown sugar and the pineapple juice from the pineapple can(s) until all the sugar dissolves.
Pour the brown sugar-pineapple glaze over the ham and into the cuts you made earlier. Take toothpicks and attach pineapple slices to the ham.
Place the ham in the preheated oven on the lower-middle shelf.
Bake the ham, but take it out and baste it every 30-45 minutes to thoroughly re-coat the ham with the glaze. While baking, if the ham starts to get too brown on top or dried out, cover with a tent of tin foil.
While the ham is cooking there is time to make mashed potatoes and buns, if desired. See the mashed potatoes recipe and bun recipes linked above.
Optional: to make corn, when the ham is almost ready, add frozen corn and some water into a small saucepan, ring to medium heat or until bubbling. Drain and add salt and butter to taste. Keep warm.
Check ham with meat thermometer and make sure it is the right temperature in several places (at least 145°F) before taking it out of the oven. You can bake it longer if desired to get more color, but it will start to dry out.
For the gravy, first take the ham out of the pan onto a cutting board. Pour the juices into a sauce pan. Mix some corn starch with water and add the mixture into the pan along with the milk. Start to heat the pan up to medium heat.
Keep whisking continuously, it may look like there's a lot of fat but it will combine into a delicious gravy. Once the gravy is bubbling and is about as thick as maple syrup and all the fat is combined, take it off the heat.
Recommended: serve sliced ham with mashed potatoes, homemade buns, corn, and gravy.
Serving size: Depends on ham size.
Line the metal or Pyrex baking dish with three layers of tin foil.
Place the scored ham (and any ham juices from the packaging) into the lined pan.
Use toothpicks to attach pineapple to ham.
Now it's time to make the pineapple brown sugar glaze. Melt the leftover pineapple juice from the can with brown sugar.
What it looks like after melting.
Pour the glaze into the pan with the ham and place in the oven to bake.
While baking you'll want to take the ham out every 30 minutes to baste it with the glaze.
While baking, if the ham starts to get too brown or dried out, cover with a tent of tin foil.
Corn (optional):
Begin heating frozen corn and some water over medium heat.
Once it starts bubbling it's ready to drain.
Drain.
Then add butter and salt to taste into your corn, mix together, and enjoy!
Back to the ham:
When it's done baking it will look glorious and beautiful and amazing, but we're not quite done, we still have to make some luscious sweet and salty ham gravy!
Ham Gravy:
These are all the juices left in the pan after taking the ham out. You'll want to pour this into a sauce pan.
Pour the juice into a pan.
Mix together the cornstarch and water, If you are making a small ham 1 Tbsp. cornstarch might be enough. If a larger ham is used, 3 Tbsp. conrstarch (and more water) might be necessary.
Add the cornstarch and water mixture, plus the milk to the pan and begin heating on medium heat, whisking constantly.
As it heats up it will begin to bubble, once it thickens and seems homogenous, take it off the heat.
And it's done! If it's too thick and gloopy, add some more milk, if it's too thin, add it back to the heat and add more constarch+water. See the next image to see how thick it should be.
The result is a beautiful ham gravy! Then simply slice the ham and serve with sides!
ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!
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