Festive Intermission

Festive Intermission - baked ham

I keep promising to post that dopiaza I made and I will, it's just that I've had to work up until yesterday.  Sometimes these spur of the moment posts are better and allow me to tell a story quickly... So in the spirit of the season...

Midwinter in coastal Belfast.  Cold but happy times...

On the poor farms of Britain and Ireland there wasn't a lot of land available to the peasants.  So the most useful and economical animal to raise and eventually eat was a pig.  A baked ham was something special to have, at special events.

Fast forward many years.  My grandfather's baked ham at Christmas became something for our family, friends and neighbours to enjoy for days, it being the size of a Lancashire prop-forward's thigh.  His custom treatment in mustard and cloves gave it a great bite and taste but kept it very juicy.

Fast forward another 20 years.  CB* reveals her family secret - marinade the ham in Cola first.  Bless you always Papa, but I think CB* is on to something...

So, using some cut price ingredients, I have made enough ham for 4 using only a small joint (£3) that will do several stragglers for leftovers, blending two different family recipes.

Ingredients

1 ham - whatever size you like.  I used a small one.  About 1lb.

2 litres Cola - the SuperMarketValueFood® cheap type ;-)
Spices: (per lb.)
 - half a nutmeg, 1tsp of powder or grated is better.  
 - enough cloves to make the ham look like it's wearing studded leather armour, so say 20 for a small joint.
 - 2 tsp cinnamon

Now then...

Enough mustard powder or regular English mustard to coat that ham all over.  Say half a jar of wet prepared mustard or 4 tablespoons of dry.  

Method

Add about half of the quantity of spices into the cola and marinade the ham in as much of it as it takes to cover it in your largest oven dish / container.  Refrigerate overnight.

Take the ham, drain it, and rub it with the rest of the spices, poking the cloves as far in as you can get them.  Now add your mustard all over.  This is messy if you use pre-prepared mustard, easier and better if you use dry.   

Marinade your ham in cheap cola first.., 

Then give it a good old rub with lots of mustard, spices and cloves shoved in there...

I've 1-UP's the tradition and wrapped it in foil, but you can use a casserole dish or whatever.  Now bake for several hours at about 160 - 180 degrees C.  

I also experimented with putting the marinade cola in an oven dish under the meat, to get a bit of steam and moisture going.  This may not make for a good crust but I'm hoping it will keep the ham fairly tender.   

I shall tell you how it tastes when it's ready.  It's already looking and smelling pretty rocking after 2 hours, so it'll be very nice come dinner time.  

Merry festive season all. SupermarketValueFoodBlog® out.  

EDIT / UPDATE:  My good grief that ham was tasty.  A little salty, but the cloves and seasoning gave it little flavour pops in every bite, and I think the steam method worked well to keep it from drying out.  The cola worked its magic and made it sweet.  If anything, I didn't add enough mustard to keep it traditional enough (!)  Next time I might try a treacle / mustard glaze and finish it under the grill after baking.  But yes.  Happy New Year!  

Spicy Oriental-style veggie stir-fry

Oriental Vegetable stir-fry

I've been super-busy with the run up to the end of the year, so here's an old post I had in the bank from last year, for just such an occasion.  Curry post will follow.  Two in fact...

 Having a fridge clear out recently , I spied a reduced pack of steamable broccoli and cauliflower  It turned out I already had some broccoli spears and cauli cous-cous in the fridge and so...

Starting to think about adding Thai, pepper and soy flavours...

You've seen these mild peppers before.  This is where they were first tried out.  Some char-siu pork on the side...

Remembering I had most of the two ingredients I was about to buy, I went for some small red and yellow peppers instead.  I had some other veg to use up, plus I got a portion of five-spice pork (which you can of course omit)
This is a remarkably simple and fast recipe, but we're going to try making our own Chinese sauce to go with it.

Here's our ingredients for today:

90% reduction for some great onion.

Today's new ingredient - cauliflower "cous-cous", above some tender stem broccoli that have seen better days, but won't be wasted.

 

 Ingredients (per person)

1 handful cauliflower cous-cous, or 1/3 a cauliflower head, de-stalked
1-2 handfuls of tender-stem broccoli with the stalks chopped off
1 bag of stir-fry mix.  Typically this contains:
 - Cabbage (or Chinese leaf if you have it, or kale, or whatever...) , shredded.
 - Beansprouts.
 - Carrots, finely shredded.
 - Red onion.  Red onion is one of the few foods that disagrees with me so I usually add...

One large white onion, finely chopped, as well / instead, to my stir fries.

1 red pepper, or 2 or 3 mild sweet peppers.
1/3* chili pepper (note the original recipe called for 1/2 but I decided this was a liiitle too spicy...)
2 tbsps. oil.  This may seem like a lot but you can drain it off.  Just keep your pan / wok hot.
1 clove chopped garlic

For the sauce 

1 large tbsp hoi sin sauce
1 tsp thai green chilli paste
2 tbsp light soy
2 tbsp dark soy
1/2 tsp chinese 5-spice powder 
1 tsp (approx) grated ginger

Method

Heat the oil as hot as your smoke alarms will allow.  Add the onions, chili and all vegetables first, except the cauliflower (on the first run it burnt a little easily)  Stir fry for 3 minutes, add the garlic and cauliflower, and fry for another 3 minutes, stirring continuously. 

Cauli, broccoli, sweet peppers, stir-fry mix

 Finally add the sauce and let it coat the veg.  Allow to cool and serve.


*munch*

Perhaps not the prettiest or best stir fry ever, but one great way to use up some cauliflower and broccoli.

Yes!  As I said, maybe half a chili AND a tsp of green Thai curry paste was maybe a bit much for this dish (don't worry, I'm doing a curry with Trinidadian scorpion chilies in it soon) but the crunchy veg and thick tasty sauce made this a fast, healthy, cheap supper, full of flavour.  The cauliflower couscous has made me love that so misaligned vegetable again.  Also, some Chinese shiaxing wine, or sherry, would cut through the sauce a little, had I had anything like that.  But hey.  The Chinese five spice pork was added as an afterthought, and was very nice, but to be honest, this dish didn't need it.  You could use mushrooms and they would work as well , or better, for a full veggie option.  

Another winner dinner, cooked in 10 minutes from prep to plate, for under a quid.