Cola Gammon - a Simple Christmas Dish

COLA GAMMON

While the family originates in Birmingham, the bulk now lives in Cape Town, South Africa and we’ve taken some of our traditions with us.   Although Gammon in coke is quite new on the foodie scene, we’ve been doing this for over 10 years.

-          One gammon – about 5/6 pounds

-          2 litres of coke (brand doesn’t matter but not diet or low sugar)

-          Jar of cloves

-          Large onion – cut into chunks

-          1 cinnamon stick

-          1 teaspoon five spice

-          2 tablespoons of nice runny honey

-          2 tablespoons of brown sugar (muscavado)

-          Zest of one orange

-          Red wine vinegar

Take the gammon and pop it in a large pan filled with cola.   Add a handful of cloves, an onion quartered, a cinnamon stick and a teaspoon of five spice.   Bring the gammon to the boil and then simmer for about 30 minutes per pound and then 30 minutes over.

Remove the gammon and then cool so you can peel off the rind.  It depends how much fat you like so you can – if you want – also remove part of the fat.  Transfer the gammon to a roasting tin and score the remaining fat before studding with cloves

You need to make a glaze so in another dish combine honey, orange zest, brown sugar and a little vinegar to loosen it all up.   Then pour over the gammon and roast for about 30 mins.  Remove and rest for an hour or so (and try to keep people from picking at it)

This is home cooking so the measures are not hugely precise and if you want to add a little more /little less do so.  It is very hard to mess this dish up and unless the oven is actually on fire, a little smoke just means the sugar is catching.   And ‘utter bliss’ it can be done the night or day before so one less thing to worry about.