I cherish my friends — they happily venture to new restaurants with me, try my recipe creations and gift my family with food. Our Dallas friends took us to their favorite spot for hearty barbecue and incredibly delicate biscuits. Recently, they sent us a hickory smoked ham from New Braunfels Smokehouse outside San Antonio, Texas. Their gift makes a great meal for a crowd, with plenty of leftovers.
I generally prefer all the dishes I can make from bits and pieces of ham, but first, let’s start with serving a beautiful roast ham for Easter dinner. To accompany the ham, a cherry chutney, spiked with a glug of bourbon, will please my cocktail-loving crowd. Oh, and biscuits seasoned with sharp cheddar and dill.
A ham comes from the upper hip portion and rear legs of a pig. A whole ham means it’s both the shank end, which narrows near the foot, and the wide butt end. A fresh ham is just that — pork with no cure, no smoke. Season a fresh ham as you would a pork roast and cook it to an internal temperature of 160 degrees.
Southern-style country hams, dry-cured from the outside, smoked (or not) and aged, tend to be denser in texture with a saltier flavor. Uncooked country hams require soaking to temper the saltiness before cooking. I enjoy cooked country ham as I do prosciutto — in super thin slices and as a flavoring nugget in many dishes. (Edwards Virginia Smokehouse sells delicious uncooked country hams totally worth the shipping fees; they also sell a sweet ham that is popular for Easter.)