Roast Gammon with Honey and Mustard Glaze

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large stockpot or pan, big enough to submerge the joint
• •Roasting tin
• •Sharp knife for scoring
• •Pastry brush

Instructions

1. 1

   Soak if needed

   If your butcher tells you the gammon is quite salty, or if you're unsure, soak it overnight in cold water. Change the water once or twice if you remember. This draws out the excess salt and gives you control over the seasoning later. If you've bought a mild-cure gammon, you can skip this and get straight to the pot.

   Ask your butcher. They'll tell you whether the cure is mild or strong. A good butcher's gammon often needs no soaking at all. Supermarket joints tend to be milder these days, but it costs nothing to ask.
2. 2

   Simmer the gammon

   Put the gammon in your largest pan and add the onion, carrots, celery, bay leaves, and peppercorns. Pour in the cider, then add enough cold water to cover the joint. Bring to a gentle simmer. Not a boil. A lazy, barely-there bubble. Put the lid on slightly ajar and let it cook for about two and a half hours for a 2kg joint, roughly twenty minutes per 500g. The kitchen will start to smell savoury and deep, like something good is being planned. If scum rises to the surface in the first fifteen minutes, skim it off. After that, leave it alone.

   The cider adds a gentle, appley sweetness to the meat. If you don't have cider, use water. It'll still be good. But the cider earns its place.
3. 3

   Remove skin and score

   Lift the gammon out of the liquid carefully and let it cool for ten minutes until you can handle it. Don't throw the cooking liquor away: it makes extraordinary pea soup the next day. Set the oven to 220C/200C fan. With a sharp knife, peel away the skin, leaving as much of the fat behind as you can. The skin should come away in one piece if you work a knife gently under it. Score the fat in a diamond pattern, cutting about half a centimetre deep. The lines don't need to be perfect. They never are. Press a clove into the centre of each diamond.

   Don't rush the scoring. A sharp knife makes this easy and satisfying. The cuts open up during roasting, letting the glaze seep into the fat and turn it into something extraordinary.
4. 4

   Make the glaze

   Mix the honey and mustard together in a small bowl. That's it. The demerara goes on separately. The honey and mustard want to be warm and loose, so if your honey is thick and cold, stand the jar in hot water for a few minutes. You're after something that will paint on easily and cling to the fat.

5. 5

   Glaze and roast

   Sit the gammon in a roasting tin lined with foil (you'll thank yourself later). Brush the honey and mustard mixture generously over the scored fat. Be thorough. Get it into the cuts, over the curves, everywhere. Then scatter the demerara sugar over the top. It should stick to the glaze and form a rough, sweet crust. Put it into the hot oven for twenty-five to thirty minutes. After fifteen minutes, open the oven and baste with the sticky juices pooling in the tin. The glaze will be bubbling and turning deep amber. The edges will be catching, going dark and caramelised. When it looks like something you want to eat standing at the kitchen counter with your fingers, it's done.

   Keep an eye on it in the last ten minutes. The sugar can go from golden to burnt quickly, and your nose will tell you before your timer does. If it's darkening too fast, drop the temperature by twenty degrees.
6. 6

   Rest and carve

   Take the gammon out of the oven and let it rest for fifteen minutes. Cover it loosely with foil, though honestly, the glaze is doing all the insulating it needs. Carve in thick, generous slices, starting from one end. The meat should be tender and pale pink, the fat golden and sticky. Spoon any of the jammy, honey-dark pan juices over the slices as you serve. Put it in the middle of the table and let people help themselves. That's the whole point.

Chef Tips

• •Talk to your butcher about the joint. Bone-in gives you better flavour and a bone for soup afterwards, but boneless is easier to carve. Either works. What matters is the quality of the meat and the cure. An unsmoked gammon lets the glaze do the talking. Smoked gammon adds its own deep, bacony character. Both are good. Your kitchen, your rules.
• •English mustard is the thing here, not Dijon, not wholegrain. You want that sharp, sinus-clearing heat that softens in the oven to something warm and sweet. Colman's, if you can get it. The powder mixed fresh is even better, but the ready-made will do the job honestly.
• •Save the cooking liquor. Every drop of it. Let it cool, skim the fat from the top, and you have the base for the best pea soup you've ever made. A handful of dried split peas, some of that liquor, and a couple of hours on a low heat. It's a second meal hiding inside the first.
• •Cold gammon the next day is almost better than hot. Thick slices on white bread with English mustard and a few pickled onions. I've written that in the notebook more than once. Some meals earn a second entry.

Advance Preparation

• •The gammon can be simmered a full day ahead. Let it cool in the cooking liquor, then refrigerate overnight. The next day, bring it to room temperature, strip the skin, score, glaze, and roast. This actually makes the day itself far calmer, which matters when you've got a table to set and people arriving.
• •The glaze can be mixed a few days ahead and kept in a jar in the fridge. It takes thirty seconds to make, but having it ready means one less thing to think about on the day.
• •Leftover gammon keeps well in the fridge for up to five days, wrapped in foil or beeswax cloth. It slices better cold than hot, which is convenient because cold gammon sandwiches are one of the better reasons to cook a whole joint in the first place.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 135g)