We picked up a ham this morning from our good friends at Forest Hill Farms. Their superb eggs and chickens were my initial draw, but we've been feasting on more of their home grown products. They pasture-raise all their animals, and they take tremendous care with all their products. So I ordered half a Christmas ham and shared it tonight with friends: one of the very best hams I've ever eaten.
I braised the ham in a mixture of
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped onions
1 tsp peppercorns
2 bay leaves
handful of sage
enough chicken stock to come up about 1" on the ham.
The ham went in a 325F oven covered until it registered 140F on my instant read thermometer. (The house was filled with the most wonderful smells...) The whole operation took about 3 hours.
I let the ham rest at room temperature for an hour or so before serving. In the mean time I filtered off the ham stock for the following sauce:
Mix together
2 tsp cornstarch
2 tsp dijon mustard
2 tsp (or so) port wine
and add to 1 cup ham stock. Bring to the boil and check for proper thickness. The sauce was amazingly wonderful with thin slices of ham. Alongside I served braised spinach with sun-dried tomatoes and scalloped potatoes.
Scrumptious!
