How to Prep Your Ham
The Basics
Our hams are gently wood smoked, cooked and ready to eat… but glazing them is 100% worth the effort!
Whether you’re serving your ham hot or cold, please practice good food safety and don’t leave it sitting out on the bench or in the sunshine for too long!
Serving Size
If ham is the main protein on your table, we suggest allowing the following when picking the right size ham…
Ham on the Bone
220g per person
Champagne Ham
180g per person
Heating Time
How long you give your ham in the oven depends a bit on the glaze you’re using, but as a rule of thumb we go with 15 mins per kilo at 160°C to set the glaze.
If you’re serving your ham hot, allow 20 minutes per kilo in the oven immediately prior to serving.
The Step-by-Step guide
- Wash your hands.
- Remove ham from packaging.
- Remove brown protective tape from bone (if there is any).
- If the ham has a hock, cut a line around the bones so your can remove the skin but leave it on the hock.
- To remove the skin, slide your fingers under the thick skin and wiggle them around to loosen it, taking care to leave as much of the soft white fat intact as possible (the fat is where the flavour lives, so don’t be stingy!). Try to take the skin off in nice big pieces – and don’t throw it in the bin.
- With a sharp knife, score the ham in a cross hatch pattern – you just want to cut thru the fat, not the meat below. Scoring the ham looks pretty, but it also helps keep the glaze from sliding off when you bake it!
- Whether or not you choose to stud your ham with cloves is a personal choice… they add a rich festive flavour, and also help anchor the glaze, but are not mandatory if you want to keep things simple.
- Pop the removed skin in your baking pan, and place the ham on top of it.
- Add a little water to the pan… just enough to cover the skin without touching the ham too much. This will keep any glaze drips from burning in the pan and keep your ham glossy.
- Glaze the ham with a glaze of your choice. We’d recommend basting the ham with extra glaze during cooking, and also spooning over some of the lovely pan juices to give it a nice sheen. Recommended heating times are set out above.
- Make someone else do the dishes!
Our very specialNegroniHam Glaze
Over the past decade a classic negroni cocktail has become a staple of many kiwi parties.
The premise of this glaze is pretty simple… make a negroni, pour it into a pot, add some honey and marmalade… and then make *yourself* a negroni while your mixture simmers into a velvety, citrus-y glaze. Easy peasy.
We always reach for a tub of Anathoth Breakfast Marmalade for this… it’s made with locally grown grapefruit and lemons and hits just the right balance of tart and sweet.
Ingredients
¼ cup gin
¼ cup sweet vermouth
¼ cup Campari
1 cup marmalade
½ cup honey
Finely grated zest of 1 orange (optional)
Method
- Place all the ingredients, except the orange zest, in a small saucepan over medium-low heat.
- Mix gently to incorporate the ingredients, and simmer for 8-10 minutes until the glaze begins to thicken. How thick you let it get is largely personal preference, we generally go to ‘coats the back of a spoon’ stage, but some people prefer to let it go longer so you get a thicker coat on your ham.
- Remove the glaze from the heat and mix in your orange zest, if using.
- Allow to cool slightly while you prep your ham, and then brush over the ham – including over the sliced face if you have a half ham – before popping it in the oven (see above for guidelines on cooking times).
- We usually continue to baste the ham with glaze every 20-30 minutes during cooking to build up a good lacquered finish, and add thinly sliced orange wheels about 20 mins prior to the end of cooking.
Notes
- This glaze goes especially well if you are cooking your ham in the BBQ – the smokiness of a hooded BBQ adds an extra level of deliciousness… but it is still delightful in the oven.
- This glaze makes enough for a half ham, or manuka honey leg ham… double it for a whole ham, or halve it for a quarter champagne ham.
Our extra yummyspiced plumHam Glaze
This glaze leans into a fragrant flavour combo that pairs phenomenally with pork: plum and chinese five spice. The result is a modern take on Christmas feasting that your guests will love.
Ingredients
1 cup good quality plum jam
¼ cup runny honey
¼ cup hoisin sauce
Orange juice (just squeeze in the juice of the orange after you zest it)
Finely grated zest of an orange
1 Tbsp chinese five spice powder
Method
- Place all the ingredients in a small saucepan over medium-low heat.
- Mix gently to incorporate the ingredients, and simmer for 8-10 minutes until the glaze begins to thicken. How thick you let it get is largely personal preference, we generally go to ‘coats the back of a spoon’ stage, but some people prefer to let it go longer so you get a thicker coat on your ham.
- Allow to cool slightly while you prep your ham, and then brush over the ham – including over the sliced face if you have a half ham – before popping it in the oven (see above for guidelines on cooking times).
- We usually continue to baste the ham with glaze every 20-30 minutes during cooking to build up a good lacquered finish.
Notes
- If you have over-catered plum sauce for your turkey… you can use plum sauce in place of plum jam, just add 1/2 cup of brown sugar as well.
- This glaze makes enough for a half ham, or manuka honey leg ham… double it for a whole ham, or halve it for a quarter champagne ham.
Our Grocery Loves
A handful of good things on our food shopping radar for summer…
Farmer's Markets
Honey Slow Gin Pickled Onions
Yum Vanilla Bean and Almond Pancake & Waffle Mix
Tony's Chocolonely 51% Dark Chocolate Candy Cane Bars
Daily Bread's Pioneer Sourdough
Greenmeadow's Angus Beef + Pickle Burgers
Mixed Roots Curry Oil
Al Brown's Double Brown BBQ Sauce
Heirloom Tomatoes
Al Brown's Double Brown BBQ Sauce
Al’s new Double Brown BBQ Sauce knocks it outta the park on flavour… a little bit smokey, a little bit sweet and just the right amount of heat. This takes bbq’d snags in bread to a whole new level of awesomeness.
Mixed Roots Curry Oil
Lots of us caught onto the chilli crisp oil craze of 2022… Mixed Roots Curry Oil is the evolution of that, with a seasoned oil that is equal parts heat, smokiness, texture and flavour. We’re stirring a little through scrambled eggs for a morning flavour hit, but it goes equally well brushed on meat or veggies for the BBQ. Made in Nelson.
Heirloom Tomatoes
Few things say summertime quite like the flush of a tomato ripening on the vine. The pre-packed grocery store offering is fine, but the colourful, mangled, glorious heirloom options will always have our hearts.
Check out Curious Croppers or Heirloomacy, or plant your own with seeds from Kōanga.
Greenmeadows Angus Beef + Pickle Burgers
You’ll never convince us that there’s a better burger than a homemade one, and Greenmeadow’s new collab with McClure’s Pickles builds that argument. Taranaki Angus beef with a subtle pickle flavour, helped along with garlic and dill… mmmm. Add a rasher of our rindless middle bacon and you’re away laughing!
Farmers Markets
Not a product, but a place. In the era of supermarket studies and a cost of living crisis, there are small changes we can all make to support our farmers, growers and fishers better while getting fresher food at more palatable prices. Your local farmers market is a good starting point… if you’re travelling, head to one you’ve never been to before. And if you’re staying home, see how your shopping habits change if you build a farmers market into your food planning routine.
This is not an exhaustive list, but a good starting point.
Daily Bread's Pioneer Sourdough
Yes, we know that we’re all post-pandemic sourdough experts… but if the rigmarole of feeding, burping and tending to a starter has all gotten too much for you (understandibly) then the Pioneer Sourdough from Daily Bread is the 72 hour fermented, no nonsense loaf that you’re looking for. We’re already dreaming about post-Christmas ham + cheese toasties on this bad boy.
Robbie's Honey Sloe Gin Pickled Onions
If you think that pickled onions belong in the 1970s, that is an incorrect opinion. You should immediately track down a jar of Robbies Honey Sloe Gin Pickled Onions to find out why. Our go to is slicing them finely and serving atop Vogels very thin toast with a schmear of chicken liver parfait and crumbled Meredith Dairy Marinated Goat Cheese.
Yum Vanilla Bean & Almond Pancake + Waffle Mix
Nothing says holiday eating like pancakes to start the day… and these are especially good pancakes. Just add eggs, milk and pancake mix to a bowl, whisk, let sit… and you’ll have hearty flavoursome no-fuss pancakes. We like ours with a side of Freedom Farms streaky bacon, BBQ’d banana, whipped cream and a generous drizzle of good quality maple syrup.
Tony's Chocolonely 51% Dark Chocolate Candy Cane Slab
While we remain Whittaker’s purists eleven months of the year, we have a heck of a lot of time for the Tony’s Chocolonely mission… to make the chocolate supply chain fairer for the millions of farmers who grow cocoa.
The dark chocolate candy cane slab hits all the right notes for a festive treat or a stocking stuffer.
Commonly Asked Questions
Are all your hams farmed in New Zealand?
Yes, without exception. All our hams are made with pork sourced from our little group of independently audited farms in South Canterbury, New Zealand.
Around 60% of the pork we eat in New Zealand was not farmed here… and when you look at bacon and ham its closer to 80%… so we understand why people are so dubious about this stuff. But if it’s got our logo on it, you’re supporting our farmers. Easy as.
Is the ham already cooked?
Yup, our hams are fully cooked (and smoked with real wood smoke) – so technically you could eat it straight out of the pack. We do suggest that you go to the trouble of glazing it though… it elevates your ham from special to really really special. Totally worth the effort.
How long is my ham good for after Christmas Day?
Oof. Tricky question, and one that we can’t give you a hard and fast rule on. The variables include how long you leave it out on the table for when serving it, how many times you open your fridge each day (its a high traffic area thru the festive season which means that the temperature isn’t the most stable), how you are serving the leftovers and a whole bunch of other food hygiene stuff.
Our suggestion is this… if you’re a big fan of ham thru the long lazy days of your summer holiday, buy two smaller hams instead of one big one.
Serve the first one all fancy-like on Christmas Day, and knock the leftovers off in that weird timezone between Christmas and New Years Eve.
Then, chuck the second ham on the BBQ on New Years Day, work your way thru that as things start to return to normal.
Can I give the ham bone to my dog?
No. A cooked ham bone is far more brittle than a raw pork bone (same goes for any cooked vs raw bone) making it much more likely to shatter and injure your pet.
We don’t want our ham to be tangled up with any injuries or holiday period after hours vet bills please!
Do you use sodium nitrate in your hams?
Yes, we use the smallest amount of preservative possible to mitigate the risks of bad microbes growing in your ham. This extends the shelf life and also gives the ham its traditional pink colour.
There is a lot of information available about nitrates in food, and most of this omits to tell you that 90% of the nitrates you eat come from vegetables (this is NOT a good reason not to eat your greens!).
The most recent information from Food Standards Australia New Zealand suggests that most New Zealanders eat less than one fifth of the recommended daily allowance of nitrate.
Our suggestion is to eat a variety of foods, work on getting your 5+ fruit and veggie servings a day, and if you are particuarly concerned about exposure to nitrate from smallgoods, consider them a treat food.