Ham, the quintessential holiday meal. Easy to make, super good and ultra keto friendly. For the ham this Easter I decided to glaze it with a sweet bourbon glaze. It turned out really well and it left me with a ton of left over ham! I already cooked Chicken Cordon Bleu with some of the left over ham and made some keto ham sandwiches as well! I served the ham with some mashed cauliflower and Cheesy Green Bean Casserole.
Here’s the plated meal! We even broke out the nice china for the affair!
This meal starts with the ham. I prefer to get a ham shank which is often referred to as “Shank Portion Ham”. Its important to note that it is already cooked so basically we’re heating it up here.
The first thing we want to do is to fit check the ham in the roasting pan.
Unfortunately, this one was too big and didn’t fit as is.
I chopped off a small wedge to get it to fit.
Next, I trimmed some of the spare fat and applied a criss-cross pattern with a sharp knife.
Throw the ham in the pan and add some water to the bottom, then cover and cook for an hour at 325.
While the ham is cooking, let’s make the glaze! Here are all the ingredients.
First, put the sugar and the mustard into a small mixing bowl.
Then add the vinegar and mix. Then add the bourbon and the mixture should be totally liquid.
Here’s the ham after an hour. You can see the criss-cross pattern really opened up after cooking!
Using a basting brush apply the glaze to the ham.
Here’s the basted ham. Also, I shoved cloves into the crevices of the ham criss-crosses.
Here’s the entire meal in the oven at once! We’ve got the ham, as well as the cauliflower mashed faux potatoes and the green bean casserole.
Now onto the slicing. Its actually pretty important how you slice it because it will determine the grain direction. You want to cut cross grain so the bites will not be stringy. Basically if its cut with the grain you will end up with really long strings that will get stuck in your teeth and will be tough. So, to do this, Start by cutting a small wedge on one side so we can stand the ham up. This is the short side.
Then stand the ham up on that wedge as shown. You will now slice off sections of it down to the bone.
Like this, slice down till you hit the bone, then turn it on its side and release all of the slices, cutting parallel to the bone. Then flip it over and do the same thing on the other side. Continue to do this until you are left with an empty bone.
Here’s the other side, I just kept slicing to the bone.
And here’s the resulting plate of ham. A little excessive for just my wife and I but whatever 🙂
And the best part? A ridiculous amount of left over ham! What do you guys like to do with your left over ham? Leave your ideas in the comments!
- Serves: 12
- Serving size: 1/12th
- Calories: 548
- Fat: 32
- Carbohydrates: 6
- Fiber: 0
- Protein: 50
- Ham:
- 8-12 Lb Bone-in Ham Shank
- Glaze:
- 1¼ Cup Splenda
- 1 tsp. Ground Mustard
- 1 tsp. Champagne Vinegar
- 2 Oz. Bourbon
- Cloves
- Trim fat and crisscross the ham
- Place in a roasting pan, add an inch or two of water and cook covered for an hour at 325 degrees
- Prepare glaze by combining all the glaze ingredients except the cloves
- After an hour, drain most of the water
- Apply the glaze to the ham and place the cloves inside the crisscross regions
- Cook for another hour uncovered
- Slice and serve!
Excellent recipe! I’ve used Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum in lieu of bourbon, with excellent results: the fluid from the first our of baking, plus the remaining glaze left in the pan after the final hour get combined and reduced down to less than half of original volume, and the resulting flavor is fantastic.
I discovered something to keep an eye out for when cooking one of these hams from Cook’s: in the packaging is a little disk with three prongs that the ham sits on, which is supposed to be removed prior to heating; I happened to forget about it the last time I made a ham, but I think that it never really got hot enough to melt, though I bet something probably made its way out of the plastic.
Also, I like to baste the ham a few times after the glaze is applied during the final hour of time. Regarding the reduction I mentioned above: I cook mine down until it’s darkened and almost opaque, with the consistency of syrup; be careful, as the sauce is not too far away from burning at this point.,