Baked Christmas Ham

I am in Cairo, house hunting and baking ham!  We were invited to the home of a colleague for a lovely Christmas celebration yesterday and I promised to help another friend bake his ham to take along.  To that end, I hauled brown sugar, mustard, maraschino cherries, wooden toothpicks and canned pineapple slices with me from KL.  I am now informed that all of those things are available here but I wasn’t taking any chances!

Ingredients

1 whole ham (ours was 19.2 lbs or 8.89kg  and boneless– an enormous thing of beauty)

3 cans pineapple slices

1 jar maraschino cherries

2 cups or 400g  dark brown sugar

7 oz or about half of a small bottle of French’s mustard (207ml)

Bunch of wooden toothpicks

(If your ham is smaller, you might not need as much of the other ingredients.  Use your judgment.)

Method

Score the ham with a sharp knife.  I forgot to photograph this part but scoring the ham just means making very shallow cuts one way on the ham and then turning it to make shallow cuts the other way, ending up with a diamond or crisscross pattern on the skin of your ham.

Using toothpicks, secure the pineapple slices all over your ham.

Add one cherry in the center of each pineapple slice and hold it firm with another toothpick.

Mix your mustard and brown sugar.  Spread over the ham with a small spoon or pastry brush.   

Don’t put it too thick because you don’t want the sugar to burn as the ham cooks.  You won’t use the whole bowl initially, so set aside the balance for the last 30 minutes of cooking.

Add a couple of mugs full of water to the bottom of the baking pan so that the glaze that drips off does not burn black in the dry pan.  Check often throughout baking that the pan does not get dried out.  Keep adding water as needed.

Bake in a 350°F or 180°C oven around 10-12 minutes per pound.  Hams are already cooked but you want the internal temperature to reach between 130-140°F or 54-60°C before serving.

Halfway through baking, take the ham out of the oven and baste with the pan juices.

About 30 minutes before you think the ham will be done, take it out and add the balance of the brown sugar mustard mixture. 

When it is done, remove the pineapples and cherries and put them around your serving dish.  Slice the ham and put it in the middle.  

This was about one third of that huge ham.  We kept slicing and refilling the platter as needed. 

Enjoy!

Beef Stroganoff

If you’ve been around and reading this blog since Individual Beef Wellingtons then you know the provenance of the beef for this stroganoff.  I had half of a filet mignon or tenderloin and used the thick side to make two generous steaks.  The skinny end of the tenderloin, I sliced up into pieces suitable for stir-fry or stroganoff and threw them, bagged carefully, into the freezer.  In fact, I labeled the bag: stroganoff meat.  It wasn’t a lot of meat, but I knew it could be bulked out with onions and mushrooms and, served over linguine, make another generous meal for two or three.  And so it did.

Ingredients

1 cup sour cream (or 1 cup whipping cream, 1 tablespoon white vinegar, plus 1 pinch of salt)

320g or 11.25 oz beef, cut into thin pieces

2 medium onions

200g or 7 oz Swiss brown or other mushroom of your choice

1/2 cup dry white wine

1 beef stock cube

300g or 10.5 oz linguine or other dried pasta of your choice

15g butter

Olive oil

Sea salt

Black pepper

Method

First, I make my sour cream.  Obviously skip this step if you have store-bought.  Add a tablespoon of white vinegar to your measuring cup.  Fill to the 1-cup line with heavy whipping cream.  Stir thoroughly.  Add a pinch of sea salt.  Stir again and set aside.  This will continue to thicken and will be just like store-bought sour cream by the time you need to use it.  (This can be used anytime sour cream is called for in a recipe, sweet or savory.)

Over a low fire, melt the butter, adding a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to the skillet. The oil will raise the burning temperature of the butter so it doesn’t burn by accident. While the butter is melting, chop your onions.

Add the onions to the pan and sauté gently until they are soft and translucent.   This could take as many as 10 or 15 minutes over a low flame.

Meanwhile, slice your mushrooms.

Add the 1/2 cup white wine to the pan and cook till it’s hot again. 

Add the beef cube and keep cooking over a low heat until the wine is almost completely reduced.  Once again, this could take 10 minutes or more.  You want the onions dissolving almost to a mush.

Put water on to boil and cook your pasta according to package instructions.

When the onions are pretty dry again, move them to a small bowl off the heat.

Turn the fire up high and get your pan really hot.  Add the beef all at once and continue to cook over a high fire so it browns.  You can add another couple of glugs of olive oil at this point. 

When the meat is mostly cooked, add the onions back in and then add the sliced mushrooms.  Your heat is still on high at this point.  Let this cook for several more minutes, until the mushrooms have softened and then turn the fire right back down to simmer.

Add in the sour cream, stirring gently.  Let it bubble along for a few more minutes until it thickens slightly.  Serve over the cooked pasta. 

Enjoy!

Smoked Salmon and Avocado Easy Appetizer

As we approach Christmas and too much to do, here’s a simple, yet delicious appetizer that requires little lead time, NO COOKING, and only two ingredients which are a marriage made in heaven.  The salty, flavorful smoked salmon complements the rich, creamy avocado perfectly.

In our house, this is a Christmas Eve staple.  Our tradition requires only appetizer-type food on Christmas Eve, no big meal, no hours in the kitchen.  We eat these salmon and avocado bites, artichoke dip, either angels or devils on horseback (Which ever is the one with smoked oysters, NOT prunes wrapped in bacon.  I can never remember.), caviar, deviled eggs, a selection of cheeses, etc., etc.  And we drink champagne.  And we wrap presents.  And we listen to Christmas music with the fake fireplace video crackling on the flat screen.  Good times. 

Ingredients

150g or 5.25 oz of thinly sliced smoked salmon

2 small to medium just ripe avocados

Sprinkle of fresh ground black pepper (optional)

Method

Cut the avocados in half lengthwise so you have two even halves.

Use your knife to get the seed out.  Do be careful.

Whack the pit with your knife, keeping your fingers well out of the way.

Hold the avocado with one hand and twist the knife and the pit should come out clean.
I couldn't hold mine AND take a photo. 

Hold the avocado half in one hand and, with a sharp pointy knife in the other, carefully cut slices just down to the avocado skin without piercing it.

Using a small spoon, starting at one end, scoop the flesh out of the skin.

Slice your salmon into strips.

Wrap one strip around each piece of avocado.  

That’s it.  Beautiful and delicious.  

You can add a sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper, if you’d like.  Enjoy!