Recipes Home
Amish Recipes
Italian Recipes
Chinese Recipes
Ham Recipes
Prime Rib Recipes
Southern Recipes
Crock Pot Recipes
Light Recipes
Low Fat Recipes
Kids Recipes
More Recipes

Tell a Friend
Print this page
About us
Site Map

Ham is, without any doubt, considered by many in America to be the ultimate holiday entree, but you need not reserve ham strictly for special occasions. By the way, here is a ham cooking recipe good for any occasion

Country Ham Recipe

1 country (dry cured) ham
1 liter caramel-colored, carbonated soft drink
1 cup sweet pickle juice, optional

Unwrap ham and scrub off any surface mold (if you hung in a sack for 6 months you'd have mold too). Carefully remove hock with hand saw. (If this idea makes you eye your first aid kit, ask your butcher to do it. But make sure you keep the hock, it's the best friend collard greens ever had.)
Place ham in cooler and cover with clean water. (As long as it's not too dirty you can use what southerners call the "hose pipe"). Stash the cooler in the bushes. If it's summer, throw in some ice. If it's freezing out, keep the cooler inside. Change the water twice a day for two days turning the ham each time. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place ham in a large disposable turkey-roasting pan and add enough Dr. Pepper to come about halfway up the side of the ham. Add pickle juice if you've got it and tent completely with heavy-duty foil.

Cook for 1/2 hour then reduce heat to 325 degrees F, and cook another 1 1/2 hours.

Turn the ham over, insert an oven safe thermometer (probe-style is best) and cook another 1 1/2 hours, or until the deepest part of the ham hits 140 degrees F (approximately 15 to 20 minutes per pound total).

Let rest 1/2 hour then slice paper-thin. Serve with biscuits or soft yeast rolls.

Even after soaking, country ham is quite salty, so thin slicing is mandatory. If you're a bacon fan, however, cut a thicker (1/4-inch) slice and fry it up for breakfast.

As you can see, it is an easy ham cooking recipe, that you can try next weekend (or right now).

The word HAM means pork which comes from the hind leg of a hog. Ham made from the front leg of a hog will be labeled "pork shoulder picnic." "Turkey" Ham must be made from the thigh meat of turkey.

For better ham cooking recipes, hams must be fresh, cured, or cured-and-smoked. The usual color for cured ham is deep rose or pink; fresh ham (which is not cured) has the pale pink or beige color of a fresh pork roast; country hams and prosciutto (which are dry cured) range from pink to mahogany color.

Curing is the addition of salt, sodium nitrate (or saltpeter), nitrites and sometimes sugars, seasonings, phosphates and ascorbates to pork for preservation, color development and flavor enhancement.

After curing, some hams are smoked. Smoking is a process by which ham is hung in a smokehouse and allowed to absorb smoke from smoldering fires. This gives added flavor and color to meat and slows the development of rancidity.

When buying a ham, estimate the size needed according to the number of servings the type of ham should yield:

1/4 - 1/3 lb. per serving of boneless ham
1/3 - 1/2 lb. of meat per serving of ham with little bone
3/4 - 1 lb. of meat per serving of ham with large bone.

The famous country ham is uncooked, cured, dried, smoked-or-unsmoked meat products made from a single piece of meat from the hind leg of a hog or from a single piece of meat from a pork shoulder. Smithfield and country hams are not fully cooked but are dry cured to be safe stored at room temperature. They should be cooked before eating according to manufacturer's instructions.

Bellow is a ham cooking recipe ideal for Parties, Christmas, New Year and Easter, when a lot of people need to be fed and can be eaten hot or cold.

1 whole or half leg of smoked or unsmoked gammon on the bone, a few peppercorns, 3-4 bay leaves, French mustard, brown sugar and some cloves

Soak over night in water to remove some of the salt, in fresh water, with the bay leaves and peppercorns added, bring the ham to the boil, now turn down the heat and let it simmer very lightly, never letting it boil, 20 minutes per pound.

When the time is up, remove from pan peel off the skin, leaving the fat on the ham, score the fat criss-cross in a diamond shape, spread on the mustard , cover with brown sugar, insert into each square one clove and place into a preheated oven and bake at 170 C ( 325 F - Gas 3 ) for 35 minutes.

Or maybe this other ham cooking recipe. Try and enjoy it:

Baked Ham

1 ham (fully cooked shank of butt portion), 1 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup honey or maple syrup, 2 teaspoons dry mustard, 15 or 20 cloves, 3 tablespoons of pineapple juice, Pineapple slices or chunks. For the Basting Sauce: 1 cup brown sugar, 1 teaspoon dry mustard and 1 cup of orange juice.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place ham in baking pan and place in oven. Bake half of the baking time or until meat thermometer reads 130 degrees. Remove ham from the oven; score with a knife and spud with cloves. Place pineapple slices on ham with toothpicks. Spoon glaze over the whole ham and return to the oven; baste with basting sauce every 15 minutes until done baking. Remove ham from the oven and let stand before carving. Calculate 15 minutes for every pound. At the half way point of cooking add the glaze and pineapple.