My girlfriend's parents recently gave us a bunch of pork from my girlfriend's grandpa's farm. The bacon and sausage we know what to do with but there's also a hunk of meat labeled "smoked ham roast" that we're not quite sure about.
We've made a beef roast before so we were thinking maybe we could just throw the smoked ham roast in the crock pot with some carrots, potatoes and onions, but for some reason I'm not terribly enthusiastic about that idea.
Any suggestions?
If it's been fully cured (smoked, then hung for a few months), it likely just needs to be warmed through for serving (or even just sliced).
If it's soft, you might need to cook it, and then you could roast it in the oven ... a crock pot might be okay; it's hard to say without having seen it.
But if it's quite firm, I'd likely just slice pieces off like you might other dry cured hams like Prosciutto, speck, jamón or country ham.
If it's heavily salted, I'd be more likely to use it as a flavoring than a meat -- cut off bits, and add to vegetable dishes when cooking. It goes great with dark greens or in bean dishes. (I just had an excellent bean & ham soup last night at a meeting that a few of us treat as a pot-luck)
Typically you would roast a ham with a glaze, then eat it in thin slices -- either hot with vegetables, or cold in sandwiches/salads.
I googled "roast ham" and there were plenty of recipes.
This way of cooking ham usually gets nibbled right out of the fridge until it's gone at our house.
Put your ham in a roasting pan or a dutch oven that you have sprayed with cooking spray or rubbed with some oil or shortening.
Put a small jar or 1 cup of orange marmalade over the top of the ham and sprinkle with pepper.
Cover and Bake at 325 degrees (this is considered a 'slow oven' and similar to using a crockpot on high) -until the glaze is thin and saucy, basting about every 30 minutes with a spoon until cooked or throughly heated through. (I don't know if your ham is cured). Bake 15 more minutes uncovered to thicken sauce a bit, and let sit 15 minutes before carving into thin or thick slices. Serve with the sauce poured over the top ham slices.
Serve it with a fresh salad and sweet potato. I like to make baked sweet potato cottage fries or jojos by slicing the washed potato into 4-6 wedges, spray with cooking spray or drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake at 375-400 until soft and golden brown.
Leftover ham from this recipe is wonderful sliced and fried with hashbrowns. You can also add the ham to baked beans or with much of the glaze removed (just wipe it off) to potato soup, minced in a cheese and ham omelet, scrambled in eggs, pasta salad ingredient when diced or cut into thin strands, added to split pea soup, or of course SANDWICHES.
You can also boil a ham for a couple of hours then it only needs to roast for 20/30 minutes to brown off.
If you boil in this manner the water you boil in should become a good pork stock - excellent for pea & ham soup.
