Gammon Tonight

Tonight we had gammon, the big brother of bacon. It is really easy to cook from raw, and since stores don't seem to sell cooked gammon apart from at Christmas, that is what I needed to do. 

First, I soaked the gammon in water to draw out some of the salt. Maybe the preservatives magically disappear too? Most recipes say to soak overnight, but I only soaked for a couple of hours as I clearly wasn't organised enough to start yesterday. Then I cooked the gammon for 30 minutes per 500g plus 30 minutes. I decided to do half the cooking in water on the stove and the other half in the oven. So, I drained the soaking water and added fresh water, covering half the joint. Spices can be added at this point, but I decided to go natural, i.e. salty. I will try bay leaf, garlic and rosemary some other time.

Once half the cooking time was up, I transferred to ovenproof dish, cut a criss cross pattern in the rind and shoved it into the oven at 180 degrees C for the remaining cooking time. I went against conventional cooking recommendations here, which say to remove the rind. I was hoping for a bit of magical crackling on my joint!

I saved the stock that was created when I cooked the gammon. It makes easy and tasty soup with just some autumn vegetables and left over gammon.

When the time was up, I removed the joint from oven and let it rest under tin foil for 15 minutes. During this time, I stir fried some red cabbage in butter with onion, parsnip and garlic, seasoned with salt, pepper, ginger and cumin. Red cabbage is so beautiful raw. Shame that it stains my hands so much and leaves a line of grime under my fingernails! 

This is what the end product looked like.

There was no magical crackling, but instead some sticky skin, which still was quite yummy. Next time I will remove the rind and see what happens to the fat layer. I guess crackling is only achieved on joints that are just roasted in the oven.