How to Cook : Ham

Wee Hughie was dying. Tenderly, his wife Maggie knelt by his bedside and asked, “Anything I can get you, Hughie?”

“Ach, man, you can’t have that,” said Maggie. “You know it’s for your funeral.”

Ham is about as simple as it gets. I almost feel silly posting about how to cook a ham. But a couple of experiences in the past year lead me to do it.

One, a farmers market customer last summer. She was perusing the list of cuts I had on hand that week and couldn’t seem to settle on anything. I suggested ham. She looked at me sheepishly and said in a hushed, confessional tone, “I don’t know how to cook a ham.”

And then this fall I was asked to supply the ham for a local foods lunch. I delivered the hams to the caterer and the day before the lunch received a phone call.

Caterer: “This ham is ready to slice and eat, right?”

Me: “No, it should be cooked first.”

Caterer: “You mean just heat it up?”

Me: “No, cook it. Like a roast. You know, at 325 degrees for a couple of hours?”

Caterer: “Okay, however you want it fixed to best showcase your product.”

Me (to myself): “Because giving everyone salmonella would be a great way to showcase my product.”

Evidently the caterer had only worked with pre-cooked boneless processed ham. When I got to the lunch I asked her how the ham had cooked up for her. “Well, it has a bone in it! I had to slice it by hand because it wouldn’t go through my slicer.”

So here’s how to cook a ham in 5 easy steps.

1.Buy a ham. According to the USDA, you should buy 1/3 to 1/2 pound of bone-in ham per serving.

2. If it’s frozen, defrost it in the refrigerator overnight. Or you can do it in the microwave. Mine has a nifty “smart defrost” feature. I just tell it I’m defrosting meat, tell it how many pounds of meat, and the microwave figures out how long to defrost it. Nifty.

3. Take it out of the package, plop it in a pot, and put the lid on.

4. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Stick the pot in the oven. Depending on the size of your ham, cook it anywhere from 2 to 3 hours. Use a meat thermometer stuck into the center of the ham to check for doneness. The internal temperature needs to be 160 degrees.

5. Slice. Eat. Pat yourself on the back.

Now, you’re going to have some lovely drippings in the pan when you’re done. My mother-in-law always made ham gravy and served it over mashed potatoes. If you’re feeling lucky, go for it. It’s salty and decadent and your arteries will most definitely not thank you for it but just tell them to hush up and pump that gravy through your veins already.

The other way I like to spruce up ham is with a little brown sugar glaze. Mix 1 Tablespoon white vinegar into 1/2 cup of brown sugar. It will be thick. When your ham is cooked pour the drippings off it. Spoon the glaze over the ham and stick it back in the oven for 5 minutes. The glaze will thin out as it heats up. This glaze is especially good for sprucing up ham steaks, which are a rather everyday cut of meat.

There you have it. My ham novella. Go on, go cook a ham!