About an orangey twist to a Champagne Baked Ham

Christmas carols are still ringing in my ears and Michael Buble is still spinning in my CD player!  I love his new Christmas album by the way.  I also love family gatherings during Christmas.  Families and relatives come in all shapes and sizes and we cannot choose them.  Quirky, gawky and dopey, they're still part of us somehow. So we make the best of them.  And that's how I learned to enjoy their company, no matter how interesting some may be. The bible says "Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling." 1 Peter 4:9  If you cook well then bless them with your cooking.  Food for thought.

Golden brown champagne honey marmalade ham.
Follow the recipe to transform your ordinary ham
into something spectacular!

My recent venture into turning an ordinary baked ham became quite a stunner during my own Christmas party, and it calls for some mention in my blog.  Now, I don't fancy a big round honey baked ham during Christmas, because I think it's boring.  You buy it off the supermarket and you warm it up and that's that.  But last week, I saw a very interesting recipe in "8 days" magazine by Italian Chef Osvaldo Forlino.  He recommended using a plain cooked shoulder of ham, bone-in.  I, however, decided to try it on a pre-cooked champagne baked ham (no bones), tweaked the ingredients slightly ... and I loved how it turned out.

The plain Champagne ham I bought from Cold Storage

Ingredients

• 1 pre-cooked champagne baked ham (honey baked ham would be okay too)
• 50 ml orange juice
• 3 tablespoons of marmalade (I used bitter marmalade jam)
• 4 to 5 tablespoons of honey
• About 20 to 30 whole cloves
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary
• 3 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil (I used rice bran oil)

Method

Orange juice, honey and marmalade marinate

Looks like a cloves pin cushion!

1. Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees Celsius
2. Mix orange juice, honey and marmalade
3. Criss-cross the outer layer of the ham with a sharp knife making diamond shapes
4. Stick wholes cloves into each diamond-cut shaped
5. Pour the marinate over the ham and let it sit for an hour
6. Bake for 40 minutes until golden brown, basking the ham with the sauce every 10 minutes.
7. Pour the remaining sauce into a separate bowl and serve with ham.

I was just at the supermarket today and there are loads of baked ham left over.  I'm pretty sure they're being sold at a discounted price.  You could try this for a New Year's party!  Never too late to eat ham :-).

It's sweet, it's savory, it's tangy, it's packed with a nice clove flavor ... it's pretty darn good.  My hubby used the sauce as a dressing for the salad as well.  So enjoy and cheers for the coming New Year!