Glazed ham at Christmas is a bit old school. Scored in a diamond pattern with cloves studded throughout is perfectly kitsch. This one leans into that a little, but swap the cloves for a funky, spicy, tangy, sticky glaze. I really love using a chipotle based hot sauce in this glaze, it’s got a nice smokiness to it, but go with your favourite hot sauce and it will be just fine. If you don’t have honey fermented garlic, don’t worry. You can easily just use raw garlic cloves, which will share their garlicky flavour with the glaze while it bubbles and thickens. If you can’t find blood oranges, regular oranges will be perfect, don’t fret. For a ham this heavy, consider getting someone to help you remove it from the oven. It’s a bit tricky to do on your own! Chat to your butcher about removing the rind for you, it’ll mean you’ll simply peel yours off before scoring the fat and will save you time.
Serves 15-20
Ingredients:
7-8kg Hagen’s Traditional Ham on the Bone
2-3 Large Oranges
6 Blood Oranges
50ml chipotle hot sauce
100ml apple cider vinegar
¾ cup dark brown sugar
6-8 cloves of honey fermented garlic
Method:
Ideally, you’ll get your butcher to remove the rind from the fat on the outside of your ham, but if not, don’t worry, instructions to follow.
Remove ham from the fridge at least 1 hour before cooking.
Preheat oven to 160 C.
Place a metal rack into a rimmed baking tray and lay over a couple of layers of foil, with enough excess that you’ll be able to wrap the sides up and around the ham once it’s placed there.
Take one of your oranges and two of your blood oranges and slice them into 2cm rounds. Arrange these on top of your foil, these will sit under the ham as it cooks.
Place the ham onto the sliced citrus.
If your butcher has prepared your ham for glazing already, simply peel off the rind. If not, make an incision deep enough to pierce through the rind down near the shank. Continue to run the knife around the edge of the ham. Gently lift the rind off in one piece by running your fingers between the rind and the fat.
Now score the fat, about 1cm deep in a criss-cross or diamond pattern, approximately 1.5cm apart. Careful not to go too deep, you don’t want to hit the meat.
Wrap the foil tightly around the ham, making sure there’s no gaps. Feel free to add some extra foil if you underestimated initially.
Place into the oven for 3.5 – 4.5 hours or until an instant read thermometer pressed into the thickest part of the ham reads 45 C.
Meanwhile, juice the remaining orange and blood oranges. To a medium saucepan, add orange juices, hot sauce, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar and honey fermented garlic. Stirring occasionally, bring to a boil. Then lower the temperature so that the glaze sits at a simmer for approximately 10-15 minutes or until dark and thick, stirring intermittently during this period so that it doesn’t burn on the bottom. The glaze should coat the back of a spoon and be quite dark in colour.
Once the ham has hit the right temperature, temporarily remove it from the oven. Turn the oven heat up to 220 C.
Pull the foil apart to expose the ham, you can fold the foil down over the tray, don’t worry about disposing of it yet.
Brush the ham generously with the prepared glaze and return to the oven uncovered.
Brush the glaze on again, every 5 minutes or so, until the exterior is dark, crispy and caramelised. Approximately 15 minutes.
Remove from the oven and let the ham sit for 45-60 minutes before carving and serving.
To serve, find your largest serving dish and place the ham on it. You can add the caramelised citrus from under the ham to the serving dish, if you wish, it is delicious squeezed over the meat. You can carve at the table, partially carve before serving or fully carve before serving – up to you!
