Recipe: Hay Baked Ham with Cider Sauce
Add a flavoursome hay baked ham to your Christmas feast this year. Baking meat in hay is an old-fashioned way of cooking, often used to roast legs of lamb with rosemary. The hay gives the meat an amazing, smokey flavour which is delicious with a gammon or ham joint served with a cider sauce.
Ingredients
For the ham
- 1.5kg boneless gammon or ham joint (smoked or unsmoked)
- A couple of handfuls of hay, soaked in cold water for a few hours or overnight
- A few sprigs of lavender or rosemary
- 1 250-330ml bottle of FARM SHOP cider
For the sauce
- Butter
- 1 shallot, peeled, halved and finely chopped
- ½ tsp flour
- 120ml cider
- 350ml chicken stock, plus any ham cooking liquid
- 1 dessert apple, peeled, cored and cut into a fine ¼cm dice
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
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STEP 1
Pre-heat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6.
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STEP 2
Remove the hay from the water, squeezing out any excess, then mix with the rosemary or lavender. Put some hay in the base of a roasting tray, place the ham on top and pack the rest of the hay on to the ham.
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STEP 3
Pour about a quarter of the bottle of cider over the ham and bake for around 1½ hours, pouring more cider over the ham as it is cooking.
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STEP 4
Once cooked, strain any cooking liquid into a container. The ham will stay warm in the hay or you can keep it on the lowest oven setting.
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STEP 5
While the ham is cooking, make the sauce. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and gently cook the shallot for a minute or so. Stir in the flour then gradually stir or whisk in the cider. Bring to the boil and reduce by half, then add the stock and continue simmering until the sauce has reduced and thickened. Any liquid from the meat can now be added and you can turn up the heat to further reduce and thicken the sauce. If the cooking liquor is too salty from the ham, then be careful not to add too much. Add the apples about five minutes before the sauce is ready.
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STEP 6
To serve, remove the hay and scrape away any stalks that have stuck to the ham. Carve it as thinly or thickly as you wish and serve with the sauce and seasonal vegetables.