The Australian Christmas Ham Guide

The ham is the one thing on the Australian Christmas table that nobody argues about. The salads change, the dessert changes, somebody's always trying a new thing with the prawns, but the ham sits there in the middle of it every single year, and it's still there on Boxing Day, and it's still there in sandwiches on the 28th.

It's also the part of Christmas people are quietly least confident about. How big should it be? Is it already cooked? What actually goes in a glaze? How do you cut the thing without it looking like it's been attacked?

So here's everything, in the order you'll need it. Buying, glazing, cooking, carving, storing, and the best part, which is what you do with it for the week afterwards.

Is a Christmas ham already cooked?

Start here, because it's the question behind most of the nervousness.

Yes. A Christmas leg ham sold in Australia is cured and cooked before you ever see it. You could carve it cold, straight from the fridge, and serve it exactly as it is, and plenty of families do.

Everything else, the glaze, the oven, the scoring and the cloves, is about flavour and theatre rather than food safety. You are warming and caramelising something that's already finished. This is genuinely good news, because it means the ham is one of the hardest things on the Christmas table to get badly wrong.

How to choose the best Christmas ham

Bone in or boneless? Bone in, if you have the fridge space. The bone adds flavour, it helps the meat stay moist, it gives you something to hold while carving, and afterwards it makes the best pea and ham soup you'll ever have. Boneless is easier to carve and easier to store, and it's a sensible choice for a small gathering, but you lose the soup.

Half leg or full leg? Or something in between? A full leg is a beautiful thing and an enormous commitment. A half leg suits most families, and it's the shank end, the narrower one, that's easier to carve. A 3rd of a leg is a good size, and a quarter is what you usually see at Woolworths and Coles.

What size? Roughly 200 to 250 grams per person if the ham is your main event, and around 150 grams if it's sharing the table with seafood, a roast and five salads, which at an Australian Christmas it usually is. So:

• 6 people: 1.5 to 2 kg

• 10 people: 2.5 to 3 kg

• 16 people: 4 to 5 kg

Then buy slightly bigger, because leftovers are the point. Nobody has ever regretted too much ham.

What to look for. Free range or outdoor bred if your budget allows, and Australian pork if you'd like to know where it came from, because a good deal of ham sold here is made from imported pork. Look for a ham that smells sweet and smoky rather than sharp, with firm, pale pink meat and a good even fat layer, because that fat is what carries the glaze.

Order early. Good hams from good butchers sell out, and the week before Christmas is not the week to discover this.

 

How to cook a Christmas ham

Once you accept that you're reheating rather than cooking, the method is simple.

1. Take the skin off, keep the fat on. Run a small sharp knife around the shank end, then slide your fingers under the skin and peel it back in one piece. It will come away more easily than you expect. Leave a good centimetre of the white fat behind, because that's what turns golden and sticky.

2. Score the fat. Cut diagonal lines about a centimetre apart across the fat, then again the other way to make diamonds. Cut into the fat only, not the meat. This is what lets the glaze soak in instead of sliding off, and it's what makes the ham look like the photograph.

3. Stud it, if you like. A clove in the corner of each diamond is traditional, pretty, and entirely optional.

4. Glaze and bake. Sit the ham on a rack in a baking dish with a cup of water in the bottom, which stops the sugars burning. Brush the glaze on generously and bake at 180°C, brushing again every 20 minutes or so. Around 15 minutes per kilo is the usual guide, so a 3 kg half leg takes roughly 45 minutes to an hour. You're after deep golden and glossy, not dark brown.

5. Rest it. Twenty minutes before carving. The glaze sets and the ham firms up, which makes carving considerably easier.

If the shank starts to brown too fast, wrap it in a little foil. And if you want the ham warm for lunch, work backwards from when you're actually eating, not when you hoped to be.

Christmas ham glaze recipes

A glaze needs three things: something sweet to caramelise, something sharp to cut it, and something aromatic. Get that balance and the rest is preference. Each of these makes enough for a 3 kg portion, and each takes about five minutes.

The classic brown sugar and mustard glaze

One cup of brown sugar, two tablespoons of Dijon mustard, two tablespoons of orange juice. Stir into a thick paste. This is the one most Australians grew up with, and there's a reason it's lasted.

Honey and soy

Half a cup of honey, a quarter cup of soy sauce, two tablespoons of brown sugar, a thumb of grated ginger. Warm gently until it's smooth. Savoury, a little sticky, and very good cold the next day.

Maple and whisky

Three quarters of a cup of maple syrup, a quarter cup of whisky, one tablespoon of Dijon. The alcohol cooks off and leaves a deep, slightly smoky sweetness.

Marmalade and clove

One cup of orange marmalade, two tablespoons of brown sugar, a quarter teaspoon of ground cloves, a splash of water to loosen it. The easiest of the lot, and it comes out beautifully glossy.

Citrus and gin

Our cook Davide makes a grapefruit and gin glazed ham every Christmas, and it's one of the most requested things on the FoodSt Christmas menu. Grapefruit is sharper than orange, which is exactly what a rich, salty ham wants sitting next to it, and the gin brings a juniper note that makes people ask what's in it. If you'd rather someone else did the work, the ham is on our Christmas menu and arrives with a glaze for you to simply brush on.

Two things to know about glazing. Apply in thin layers rather than one thick coat, because sugar that pools will burn before the rest catches up. And glaze towards the end rather than the beginning if your ham needs a long warm through, since twenty minutes of high heat is plenty to set a glaze.

How to carve a ham

More people are nervous about this than will admit it, and it's easier than it looks.

Sit the ham on a board with the shank, the narrow bone end, pointing towards you. Cut a thin wedge out near the shank to give yourself a flat face to work against. Then slice down towards the bone, thin and even, working along the leg. As the slices come free, run your knife along the top of the bone to release them.

Carve towards the bone, not across it. Keep the slices thin, they taste better and they go further. And carve only what you need, because a ham keeps far better whole than sliced.

A sharp knife with a long thin blade does most of the work here. A blunt knife is the actual reason ham carving goes wrong.

How to store a Christmas ham

This matters more than people think, because a well stored ham lasts a fortnight and a badly stored one goes slimy in four days.

Use a ham bag, or make one. A clean pillowcase or a tea towel soaked in water with a splash of vinegar, wrung out, works perfectly. Wrap the ham, put it in the coldest part of the fridge, and rinse and re-wet the cloth every couple of days.

Don't use plastic wrap or foil. They trap moisture against the meat, and that's what turns the surface sticky.

A whole, well wrapped ham keeps around two weeks. Once carved, eat within a week for the best of it.

Freezing. Ham freezes well. Slice it first, portion it into meal sized amounts, and it'll keep for around three months. Freeze the bone separately for soup.

Leftover Christmas ham recipes

This is the real reason to buy a bigger ham than you need.

Pea and ham soup. The bone, a bag of split peas, an onion, a carrot, a stick of celery, water to cover, and two hours. Shred whatever meat is still clinging to the bone back into the pot. This is the best thing you'll eat all week and it costs nothing, because you already own all of it.

Ham, cheese and mustard toasties. Obvious, correct, no notes.

Ham and corn fritters. Diced ham, tinned corn, spring onion, flour, egg, milk. Fried in a pan for breakfast on the 27th, when nobody wants another plate of salad.

Fried rice. Cold rice from the night before, diced ham, peas, egg, a little soy. Ten minutes and it clears the fridge.

Carbonara, near enough. Ham instead of guanciale is not traditional and our Italian cooks would like it noted, but it's very good, and it uses up the ends.

Quiche or a frittata. Ham, whatever cheese survived Christmas, whatever herbs are still alive on the windowsill.

Pizza. Ham and pineapple. We're not getting involved in that argument, but the leftovers are ready if you are.

When you'd rather not do any of it

All of the above assumes you want to cook, and plenty of people genuinely do. Christmas is the one meal of the year worth the effort, and a ham you glazed yourself is something to be proud of.

But some years you just don't have it in you, and that's a perfectly reasonable position to take in the middle of December.

That's what FoodSt is for. Our Christmas menus are handmade in small batches by local home cooks around Australia, from family recipes they've been making for years, and they arrive freshly frozen so you can put them in the freezer well ahead of the day and heat what you need on Christmas morning. There's a glazed ham, all the things that belong beside it, desserts worth staying at the table for, and a vegetarian menu so nobody misses out. The full range goes live in late October.

Either way, whether you're glazing your own or letting someone else carry it this year, we hope your ham is a good one and your Boxing Day sandwiches are even better.