Sunday lunch

A glazed leg of ham is always on our family's Christmas menu. It's usually a once-a-year treat but with me at home for the weekend and Mum and Dad returning from a holiday we decided it was the perfect time to use the half ham from Havoc that Becs had acquired when helping out at the Taste Farmers Market Awards a few weeks ago. We invited our aunty and uncle over and made an occasion of it: Sunday lunch.

We defrosted the ham in the fridge for a couple of days then on Sunday morning, a couple of hours before lunch, we put it into a nice warm bath (sealed in a plastic bag) to help it come to room temperature before going in the oven.

Our glaze "recipe" is very simple and only requires two ingredients: marmalade and brown sugar. You can use any type of marmalade you like. On Sunday I used Rose's English Breakfast marmalade because it has a high fruit content (compared to some other brands) and lots of nice orangey-bits.

The very first step is to prepare your baking tray. Use a tray or dish deep enough to contain the glaze and it's absolutely critical that you cover it with a layer of tin foil and at least two of baking paper. Failure to do so will result in very difficult-to-clean sticky mess.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

To prepare the ham for glazing you need to deal with the mildly unpleasant task of removing the skin. Carefully ease back the skin, leaving the thick layer of fat behind...

...once you have the skin off, use a sharp knife to score nearly all the way through the fat in a diagonal pattern.

Press a whole clove into the centre of each diamond...

...now for the glaze: smother the ham with as much marmalade as required. We used about 1/3-1/2 a jar for a half-leg. Then pack on the brown sugar... don't be shy - pack on a really thick layer into the marmalade. Watch out for little fingers...

Now your ham is ready to go in the oven. Bake for 30 minutes at 180 degrees C, basting every 10 minutes. Then turn the oven up to 200 degrees C and bake for a further 15 minutes. By this time the glaze should be lovely and sticky. We put the ham under the grill for a few minutes for extra stickiness but if you do this you need to watch it very closely - by this point in the process there's a lot at stake!

If glazing a whole ham, increase the cooking time to 1.5 hours or so.

We like to eat the ham hot so carved it straight away... and poured over the delicious, citrusy glaze that had collected in the bottom of our well-lined pan.

The ham hadn't suffered at all from spending a little time in the freezer - it was deliciously pink and tender and juicy. Havoc say once you've tasted their pork you'll know the difference and I have to agree. We enjoyed the ham with mustard fruits (another family Christmas staple), freshly-baked focaccia, and a salad of greens, oranges, blanched broad beans.

For a sweet treat, Becs made roasted pears with chocolate and walnut crumble served with vanilla cream in her cute pink Crown Lynn bowls. It's sort of a deconstructed crumble - honey roasted pears topped with an oaty, chocolate, walnut cookie-type crumble. The recipe is on page 86 of the current (July 2011) Cuisine magazine. If you don't have it already, buy it and make these pears!

Edited March 2012 to add recipe as Cuisine stll haven't loaded it on their site :(

1/4 c honey

150g butter
juice 2 lemons
6 ripe but firm pears, peeled, cored and halved
1/2 c brown sugar
1 c rolled oats
1/2 c flour
70g walnuts, chopped
150g dark chocolate, chopped

Preheat oven to 180c.  Place pears cut side up on a lined baking tray. Melt honey and 50g butter, brush over the pears. Cover with foil and roast for 20 minutes. Mix remaining butter with brown sugar, flour, oats, walnuts and chocolate.  Crumble over pears and bake uncovered for a further 30 minutes.