Ham a lam a ding dong

[Tiny]

Festive greetings chaps, and of course I use chaps as an gender inclusive term.

I knew it was going to be a fine day for bbq today, I woke early and posted on the old Face the book "stop! Ham-ma time" as an 80s related overly baggied trouser homage to todays ham cooking antics....I was then greeted by my eldest son greeting me with the words "stop Hammer time", when I exclaimed he had been on face the book he swore not, twas just the Q Gods aligning force......

So we got our 4kg hunk of gammon from the excellent sheperds in Drayton near Portsmouth and went straight onto the smoker....soaking is for salt avoiding fools.....

Gave it 2 hours in Cherrywood smoke offset on my big gas Outback with the chips to one side, temp said it was circa 125c but I wouldn't trust that gauge as far as I could lob the bbq itself.

After the smoke time it was bath time, carrot, onion (oh the mind of an teenage boy "this onion says best before 20th November I don't think we should use it" err perfectly serviceable onion it was), an celery stick....at this point I drew wrath from Mrs Tiny when I inadvertently started"the celery song" those of you of an certain age will know it and why to this day you cant take celery into an football ground....but I digress....Celery, onion, carrot, 2 bay leaves and some peppercorns, then to liven things up a touch an big ole scotch bonnet pepper. Gammon went in and I filled the pot with coca cola, well not as much as I wanted as Mr Gammon was too big really and I couldn't get the lid on....."youre gonna need a bigger pot"

But we improvised a cartouche and in the oven at 140 for anoth 3 and a half hours. Out she came and we tasted, Scotch bonnet had done the business and you could taste the smoke and heat on the outside.....and perhaps it was a touch on the salty side.

So we wound back from a spicy glaze, went pomegranate molass , sweet paprika and golden syrup, 2 coats of the latter over 35 mins at 180c.....

It is a fine fine ham indeed, trying to prise Mrs M and the eldest lad off it now as they have knives and are not shy. Surprised how much you can taste a very definitive cherrywood smoke.

So hooray for us, manly ham cooking, sorry no pictures, if you find me on Face the book, I am the only Ian Tiny Morris, there are some there... But of course I have no idea how it looks so if it is ugly don't tell me! I presume it to look a proper job.

So much festive goodness to you all, thanks for all the insight and smiles in 2014 I am determined to get to one of the gigs next year and meet some of you in person....

God bless us one and all........
Tiny

[slatts]

Merry christmas Tiny

Thanks for that tale of the ham, great tale and i'll be having a look at said face of the book page

I really wanted to do a ham but the turkey is on the smoker now ready for tomorrow and as said somewhere else on here im on holiday from 4am boxing day morning so any extra food will probably go to waste.

Next year oh next year will be turkey, ham, beef ribs and anything else i have time for, big family meal i hope.

Im hoping to do a grass roots comp next year, maybe see you there

All the best
Slatts

[Thunderbird30]

Love the title of the post!!