It has been an absolutely gorgeous Easter Sunday in the Bluegrass. The weather is a sunny 70 degrees and I'm writing this post from a lounge chair in my driveway. The country music is blaring, the kids and my husband are playing basketball and the sun is going down. The sound of the kids laughter is infectious. What more could you ask for?
Well, a delicious dinner would've topped the day perfectly, but it didn't happen. Cooking my way through Tyler's Stirring the Pot is a lot of fun, but some of the recipes like this fresh ham are somewhat seasonal and need to be prepared for a special day, such as Christmas or Easter. This recipe for Baked Fresh Ham has somewhat haunted me. I had tried to prepare the ham for Christmas but was told that I wouldn't be able to get any fresh ham until Easter. I started looking for fresh ham at the beginning of March and never found it. Desperate, I called the butcher in Lexington. He explained to me that I couldn't just buy a 5-6 pound fresh ham but that I would have to buy an entire leg of pork. Twenty pounds of pork! He was kind enough to tell me that he would cut the ham and butcher the rest, free of charge. Thirty dollars later, I left his shop with a 6 pound fresh ham, 11 pounds of ground pork and two ham hocks. This is how Project Pork began.
After much planning I was hopeful that Tyler's recipe for Baked Fresh Ham with Apple-Cranberry Chutney would be a winner. High hopes. Need I say more? High hopes get me almost every time.
Notes/Results: Tyler's recipe is about as simple as it gets. You simply oil, salt and pepper the fresh ham and baked it covered for 2 hours. After 2 hours, the ham is uncovered and baked for another hour. Simple enough, right? Well, the ham was flavorless, bland and chewy. My ham never achieved the pinkish hue that Tyler's ham has in the cookbook. Also, the outside of the ham was overcooked and dry while the inside of the ham was still undercooked. It was just plain gross. My father in law and my husband were the only ones who choked it down. I took one bite and pushed it to the corner of my plate. Luckily, we had enough side dishes that it all worked out okay. I have a ton of the ham leftover and I think it is rather inedible. When a recipe fails, I always try to think of what I could have done wrong, but I don't see where I could have gone wrong with this. I bought the ham from a very reputable butcher, it was extremely fresh, I followed all the directions, but it just wasn't very good at all. I have quite a bit of the ham left and I don't foresee us eating the leftovers. While I enjoyed the chutney, which tasted like a spicy applesauce, I did not enjoy it with this ham. I have chose not to post the recipe based on the fact that none of us cared for it very much.
Even though we did not enjoy the fresh ham, I am excited about the 11 pounds of ground pork and the two ham hocks. Project Pork is still happily underway. I have been having fun thinking of ideas for all the ground pork and will have a Throwdown featuring breakfast sausage coming up this week.
I hope you all had a wonderful Easter Sunday. Even though the fresh ham didn't work out we had an absolutely wonderful day!
The weather was fantastic in CT, too! That ham looks absolutely delicious. Happy Easter :)
ReplyDeleteoh man, that's such a bummer! but, at least you did get some great meat out of the deal. it sounds like you had a lovely day, happy easter!
ReplyDeleteThirty bucks for all that meat - that is a STEAL!
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry the recipe didn't quite work out. I've never cooked a ham before so tragically I have no advice to offer you. You win some you lose some I guess!
Happy easter!
Bummer the recipe didn't turn out after all the effort to find the ham.
ReplyDeleteBut I am sure you will have fun with all of your pork and I still can't believe only $30 for all of that meat.
Glad you had a nice Easter! ;-)
Looks delicious!!! I just made a post about apples, your sauce seems great!
ReplyDeleteOH I just hate it when that happens! Well, hopefully you can find a way to use some of the ham at least. Soup....ham pot pie...ham loaf...ham salad...something! Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't mind spending $30 for an entire leg of pork...that's a great price! I'd be at this butcher every week!
ReplyDeleteSorry it didn't quite work out for you! Glad to hear you had wonderful weather for the Holiday.
ReplyDeleteNo matter about the ham- the day was still glorious right? My ravioli filling leaked into the pasta water so that the pasta water was tastier than the raviolis. It's still all put together with love. MN had its best Easter weather in about ten years. Counts for something,
ReplyDeleteThat's a shame. I'm going to venture a guess that while not stated in the recipe his fresh ham was brined. I'd write him a note. I did that once with an Ina Garten recipe and she actually got back to me. Fresh ham aside, I hope you had a wonderful holiday.
ReplyDeleteOh, no! Well, bless your heart for posting your results. I agree with Mary, whole-heartedly. Maybe the meat should have been brined? Then again, I'm not a ham expert at all. I just buy the spiral sliced pre-cooked ham and call it a day! As for the chutney-- double bummer that it didn't pair well with your pork. No matter what, how blessed we are to be able to buy food, eat and blog about it. Better luck next time-- am looking forward to seeing what you make next!
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you had a perfect Easter regardless of the ham.
ReplyDeleteThe chutney sounds fantastic, Kim! Good job on the ham! Looks great!
ReplyDeletewow sounds like the perfect day your so sweet great looking ham
ReplyDeleteKim,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your note. Doing well here in Indiana, but I am sooo ready to go home to Ohio tomorrow.
I love the description of Easter afternoon in your driveway. It does sound perfect. As for the pork...now you know why it's so hard to find it fresh... because no one likes it that way. lol. Ham begs to be cured or smoked or whatever. Fresh is a really good with almost every food...but not ham. Take it from me...I was the County Pork Queen once upon a time. ;-)
Can't wait to hear about that ground pork, though.
Happy Belated Easter!
Sorry about your ham. Could you use the leftovers in some kind of hash to disguise it a bit or is it too gross?
ReplyDeleteAnd that is an awesome deal for all of that meat!
Note to self: Don't plan a meal with Kim's ham and my rolls....we'd have nothing to eat;)
ReplyDeleteDespite your "learning experience", I really love your positive attitude about it, Kim. You rock.
Everything is a learning experience...the sides look great :-)
ReplyDeleteBy the way, you inspired me to buy Tyler Florence's book. Just got it today from Amazon!
Kim, sorry about the ham. You just never know how some things will turn out, been there and done that too! Hope you have a great week!
ReplyDeleteIt's good to hear that you still had a wonderful Easter despite the ham. And it sounds like everyone was a good sport about it. The chutney sounds really good too. I like apples and cranberries together.
ReplyDeleteI read this post the other day, and it just occurred to me that you can recreate the leftovers of this baked ham. There is a carnitas recipe on FLB that uses a lot of spices and braising to make the meat fall apart. It may be worth a try to salvage what is left of this huge hunk of ham. :0)
ReplyDeleteKim,
ReplyDeleteSorry that the recipe was a bust. I have cooked fresh ham before and it taste nothing like ham as we know it. I 'm thinking that he really didn't mean fresh uncured ham.
Mimi
My heart goes out to you. I tried a picnic ham that I cooked in a cast iron skillet over indirect heat on the grill for 4 hours at 300*. It was so tough we couldn't slice it, we had to pull it off in chunks. The fact that I had marinated it for 24 hours in Mojo getting up in the middle of the night to turn it made the experiment even more hurtful. I don't think you did anything wrong as I even looked up the recipe I used and I followed it to the letter.
ReplyDelete