During my personal wonder years, the main dish on our family holiday tables never changed. It was quite comforting, in fact. Turkey for Thanksgiving, ham and turkey for Christmas, and ham for Easter. No doubt it’s the same in many households. Although my precious parents have been gone for many years, woe be unto anyone even today who would mess with the traditional meat menu when remaining family get together on those special occasions.
With Easter a bit more than two weeks away, the sisters and I have begun to think about what we’ll have, and drawing for the short straw for who will bring the hallowed ham. Which is why Elizabeth Karmel’s suggestion of a fresh ham — uncured, unsmoked, uncooked — caught my attention.
Karmel is a barbecue and Southern foods experts. She’s the chef and pitmaster at online retailer CarolinaCueToGo.com and author of three books, including “Taming the Flame.” Karmel knows meat.
Her own Grandmother Odom prepared a fresh ham every Easter. The pork was studded with cloves and slathered with brown sugar and mustard before roasting, the chef shares in an article for The Associated Press. “The aroma made the entire house smell amazing,” she says.
Karmel adapted her grandmother’s recipe for roasting on the grill and was thrilled that it turned out to be “deceptively easy.”
“All you really need is the forethought to order a fresh ham from your butcher (many grocers don’t normally stock them) and the patience to let it cook slowly over indirect heat,” she instructs.
“Green” ham
A fresh ham, sometimes called a “green” ham, is pork at its most basic. The meat is sweet and succulent, and the texture is meaty, not compact and slick as a cured ham often is. Also, the meat of a fresh ham remains white when cooked.
“I promise it will taste like the best pork roast you have ever eaten,” pledges Karmel.
She noted that fresh hams are very different from the usual cured or smoked hams people are accustomed to. (Her family used those mostly for sandwiches, not holiday feasts.)
“The preparation is quite simple and decidedly old-fashioned,” she says. “Don’t be tempted to switch the yellow mustard for Dijon. Though I generally prefer Dijon, in this instance yellow is better. The combination of yellow mustard and dark brown sugar forms a heady crust that is punctuated by the whole cloves that dot the natural fat cap on the ham.”
Some people leave both the skin and the fat intact, but Karmel finds that removing the skin and leaving just the fat on the ham allows the mustard-brown sugar-salt slather to better infuse the meat. “And the deeply caramelized crust you get from the long cooking time is something that you want on as many slices as possible,” she says.
Depending on where you live, you may need to order the ham up to a week in advance. You also can also ask the butcher to skin the ham for you, but make sure to ask that the fat be left intact.
Karmel’s grandmother’s recipe is included below, along with instructions for oven roasting if you prefer that to the grill.
GRANDMOTHER ODOM’S FRESH HAM WITH CLOVES AND BROWN SUGAR
Start to finish: 6 hours (30 minutes active)
Servings: 15 to 20 (depending on size)
12- to 15-pound fresh (uncured, unsmoked) ham (bone-in leg of pork)?
2 tablespoons whole cloves
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
9-ounce jar yellow mustard
Nutrition information per serving: 370 calories; 150 calories from fat (41 percent of total calories); 16 g fat (5 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 140 mg cholesterol; 7 g carbohydrate; 1 g fiber; 6 g sugar; 47 g protein; 740 mg sodium.
Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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