|  Comment:
This is a wonderful recipe to create your own special holiday ham.
It is quite simple to accomplish, but I guarantee you will receive
rave reviews with this dish. Try adding a few of your own secret
spices.
Ingredients for boiling:
- 1 (5-10 pound) smoked ham
- 6 bottles root beer (high quality)
- 12 kumquats, halved
- ½ tsp cloves
- cracked black pepper to taste
- 1 tsp filé (ground sassafras)
Method for boiling ham:
Place ham in a cast iron pot or heavy-bottomed Dutch oven. Surround
with kumquats and cloves. Add root beer and dust with cracked black
pepper and filé. Bring to a rolling boil and reduce to simmer.
Boil approximately 1 hour, turn ham over and continue boiling until
root beer is reduced to a thick syrup. Remove ham and set aside.
Continue to reduce syrup until it is the consistency of molasses.
CAUTION: Do not scorch. Remove root beer syrup and place in a mixing
bowl. Allow to cool and reserve for use in the glaze.
Ingredients for glaze:
- ½ cup root beer syrup (reserved)
- 1 cup Creole mustard
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup Steen's Cane syrup
- ¼ cup pineapple juice
- ¼ cup cracked black pepper
- pinch of cinnamon
- pinch of nutmeg
- pinch of allspice
- pinch of ground clove
- kumquat halves, optional
Method:
Preheat oven to 350ºF. In a mixing bowl, combine syrup, mustard,
sugar, cane syrup and pineapple juice. Whisk all spices into the
mustard mixture until well blended. Place ham in center of a Dutch
oven and coat completely with the mustard mixture. Bake uncovered
for 1 hour. NOTE: Before baking, you may wish to decorate the ham
for the table centerpiece. If so, use a sharp paring knife to cut
slits 1/8-inch deep diagonally across the ham. Continue in the same
pattern from the opposite side until diamond shapes appear from
the cuts. Stud with a clove at the point of each diamond and, using
toothpicks, secure kumquat halves to the top of the ham.
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