Easter ham recipes

 Easter ham recipes are for you, if  you don’t want to spend hours prepping in the kitchen. 

The key to great Easter ham recipes is not to overcook the ham.  You want to serve a moist and tender ham, not a dried out mess of stringy overdone meat.

Cured vs. Uncured ham. What is the difference?  Sodium nitrates and flavoring have been added to cured hams.  Personally, I feel much better about serving uncured pork products to my clients.  They are safer to consume and taste better, I think. Adding sodium nitrates to the proteins makes them slightly tougher in texture and darkens the color of the meat.  Whichever you choose, be sure to store them properly and cook them to a safe temperature.

How to Cook an Uncured Ham
An uncured ham can be cooked the same way as one that has nitrates added. To speed the process up, you can bring the ham to room temperature by leaving it out for an hour on the counter.  I reheat a ham at  250 degrees until it reaches 135 degrees.  Also, cooking the meat in heat proof roasting bag with holes punched into the top, will ensure the ham doesn’t dry out. Depending on the size of your ham, it can take as much as four hours to reheat properly. Remove the ham from the bag, add a glaze and crank up the oven to 400 degrees for 15 minutes to solidify the crust. Your ham should reach 145 to be safe to serve. Let it rest  for a few minutes before slicing.

Serve immediately.

Easter Ham Recipe:

Ham

1 spiral-sliced, bone-in half ham (7 to 10 pounds)

1 large oven bag (plastic)

Beer Glaze

12 ounces ale or other dark beer

1 cup dark brown sugar, packed

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

INSTRUCTIONS

Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 250 degrees. Unwrap ham; and throw away any plastic disk covering bone. Place ham in oven bag. Gather top of bag tightly so bag fits snugly around ham, tie bag, and trim excess plastic. Set ham cut-side down in large roasting pan and cut 4 slits in top of bag with paring knife.

Bake ham until center registers 135 degrees on instant-read thermometer, 2 to 4 hours (about 15 minutes per pound with a bone in).

Make the glaze by heating all of the glaze ingredients until the sugar is melted and it reduces by half.

Remove ham from oven and increase oven temperature to 400 degrees. Cut open oven bag and roll back sides to expose ham. Brush ham with one-third of glaze and return to oven until glaze becomes sticky, about 10 minutes (if glaze is too thick to brush, return to heat to loosen). It should reach 145 degrees to be safe to serve to your guests.

Remove ham from oven, transfer to cutting board, and brush entire ham with another third of glaze. Let ham rest, loosely tented with foil, for 15 minutes.

While ham rests, heat remaining third of glaze with  6 tablespoons of ham juices until it forms a sauce which is easily pourable.

Carve and serve ham, passing sauce at table.

That’s it, perfect Easter ham to serve at your holiday table.

Enjoy!