Ham in Not Coke

In March, I shared my Ham in Coke recipe. This was how I have been making ham for most of the time I have been married. It's a great recipe except my family and I have been trying to give up soda and look at giving up all artificial stuff in our food. That created a slight dilemma when it came to cooking the ham I had set aside for a Sunday family dinner. Not one to really faulter in the face of a challenge, I figured it can't be too hard to replicate a soda-like beverage for boiling my ham. What we ended up with was the best ham I have ever made. My husband, who always says he doesn't like ham, said if I made it that way every time he'd be a fan. It was a really recipe and open to a lot of interpretation.

Ham in Not Coke:
1 family sized ham, bone-in
Water to cover ham
1 large onion or two small onions, sliced (I quartered the small onions)
1 cup sugar, brown sugar, honey, molasses, or combination of
1 TB vanilla
Place ham in large pot and cover with water. If ham is pre-cooked then mix "soda" to taste, if not place ham in water after seasoned. Add sugar and vanilla to water until it tastes similar to soda. Add onions. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for a few hours (this really depends on how much time you have and what your plans our). I let mine simmer for nearly 4 hours.
Remove ham from stock and place on baking sheet. My ham had cooked so long that the fat was seperating from the meat. I scraped the fat off and returned it to the stock water. If your fat is not removed, score it to allow the glaze to penetrate.
Make glaze - 1/2 cup honey, 1 TB ground mustard, 1 teas Chinese Five Spice (or a combination of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, anise and allspice). Spoon glaze on ham. Set under preheated broiler until the glaze has carmelized (about 5 minutes or so).
Slice up and serve. Reserve the stock for beans (currently my husband has black beans boiling in the stock and keeps telling me they taste really good but I am at work while he's making the beans).

Quiche

I am so behind and really ran out of recipes so much earlier than I expected. I know that Quiche is not Irish but this version has a bit of an Irish flare.
I often skip making Quiche in a crust since my family really doesn't care for it that way but feel free to use a pie crust for your version.

Ham and Cheese Quiche
2 red potatoes, cubed
1 tb dried rosemary
1 cup cubed ham
1 premade pie shell
1 cup shredded cheese
3 eggs
1 cup milk
1 teas all-purpose seasoning
oven to 400. place potatoes and rosemary in a microwaveable dish. cover with damp paper towel and microwave 2 minutes until almost cooked through. cover the bottom of the pie crust with potatoes, ham and cheese. whisk together eggs, milk and seasoning - pour in pie crust. put in oven for 35-40 minutes until eggs set.

Ham in Coke

This isn't technically an Irish recipe but ham is an alternative to Corned Beed and this method is the only way my family will eat ham (except for the occassional sandwich). Buying a good ham is not as easy as it used to be. Look for a "real" ham and not a processed hunk of pork. Real ham has a lot of flavor - skin on is best with the bone still inside. I found this recipe in a Nigella Lawson book. I have even used Cherry Coke which gives a slight fruity flavor.

Ham in Coke
4-41/2 pd bone-in ham
1 onion, peeled and halved
2 liter coke
Cloves
1 TB molasses
2 teas English mustard powder
2 TB brown sugar
Place ham in pot, skin side down if possible. Add onion and coke. Bring to boil, reduce to simmer. Cover and simmer 2 hours or 1 hour for every 2 pounds. Remove ham from stock. Remove skin. Score fat and dot with cloves. Rub with molasses. Pat on mustard and sugar. Cook in foil-line roasting pan at 500 degrees for 10 minutes.

Save the stock and make:

Black Bean Soup
3 cups dried black beans
Coke stock from above and water
Juice of ½ lime
1 teas cumin
1 teas coriander
Cook beans in stock and water (cover over 2 inches) until tender. Let come to boil and reduce to low – cook 1-11/2 hours. Add lime juice and spices. Serve with sour cream.
-can remove 3 ladles of beans and puree with spices before seasoning if desired (I found this to be a pain so we skip this step).