Cooking a Ham Roast

I’ve had so many questions about how to cook a ham I thought I’d put some information together. First a disclaimer: while I am fairly experienced cook I certainly have no training or expertise; I often still rely on the Betty Crocker cookbook I got as a wedding gift for cooking times and temperatures for meat.

The ham you bought from us is most likely a smoked ham. However, unlike the ham many of you are accustomed to from the grocery store (what my kids used to call “the pink meat”) these hams are not pre-cooked. That means you’ll need to cook it more like you would a roast not just re-heat it as you would typically do with a ham.

Roast your smoked ham uncovered in a 325° oven for about 20 minutes per pound. This recipe recommends roasting to an internal temperature of 170° and the rationale makes great sense to me, so that’s my advice. A meat thermometer is really an essential piece of kitchen equipment so if you don’t have one, now is the time to get one. You may have to make a “tent” from foil toward the end of the cooking time if the ham is getting too brown on the outside.

I don’t usually add much in the way of seasoning to ham but I am going to try the maple-spice glaze from the recipe in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette since I do like a crust on the outside of the ham. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Another traditional meat for Easter dinner is a leg of lamb. While the idea of “spring” lamb is a bit of a misnomer for us as lambs are born in the spring, not butchered then, we do have lambs available for purchase and many of you may have saved a leg for a special meal.

My favorite recipe for lamb comes from the “Garlic, Garlic, Garlic” cookbook written by our friends Fred and Linda Griffith. Their support in the Cleveland area has been so valuable and they’ve been so generous that, anytime I make one of their recipes, thoughts of them are always a part of the pleasure of the meal.

A few more of our Easter food traditions are made with products we raise here on our own farm and I’ll post more of those recipes later this week.