Jerk Ham

Rubbed with Spices & Glazed with Rum-Spiked Marmalade

by Jamie Oliver from Jamie Oliver’s Christmas Cookbook (Penguin/Michael Joseph). Photography: David Loftus

These days, if I’m going to do a baked ham, it’s got to be this recipe. The contrast of gorgeous juicy ham with the outer crust of incredible jerk flavours and the sweet rummy marmalade glaze that finishes it off is just brilliant. Heaven.

SERVES 16 –20

3 HOURS 40 MINUTES

Ingredients

1 x 4kg piece of middle-cut gammon, with knuckle

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

1 bouquet garni

1 onion

JERK

3 cloves of garlic

3 red shallots

3 fresh Scotch bonnet chillies

½ a bunch of fresh thyme (15g)

3 fresh bay leaves

½ a bunch of fresh chives (15g)

1 tablespoon runny honey

1 tablespoon each ground allspice, ground nutmeg, ground cloves

100ml golden rum

100ml malt vinegar

GLAZE

1 orange

150ml golden rum

3 tablespoons quality bitter orange marmalade

Method

Get your meat out of the fridge and up to room temperature before you cook it.

Preheat the oven to 160°C/325ºF/gas 3.

Place the gammon in a deep roasting tray with the peppercorns and bouquet garni. Peel the onion, cut into wedges and add to the tray.  Pour in enough water to come halfway up the side of the tray, then cover it with tin foil. Bake for 1 hour 30 minutes, then remove from the oven and leave for 30 minutes, keeping it covered. Now, while it’s still warm, carefully remove the skin, keeping the fat attached to the ham. With a Stanley knife, score the ham by making lots of diagonal cuts across the leg.

Turn the oven up to 180º/350ºF/gas 4.

To make the jerk seasoning, peel the garlic and shallots, deseed the chillies, and place them all in a food processor. Strip in the thyme leaves, tear the bay leaves off the stalks, and add the leaves to the processor with all the other jerk ingredients and 1 tablespoon of sea salt. Blitz it up until smooth, then brush or rub (wearing gloves!) it all over the ham and scored fat. Bake the ham for 1 hour.

For the glaze, squeeze the orange juice into a bowl and mix with the rum and

marmalade. Remove the ham from the oven, pour over the glaze, then roast for

another 30 to 40 minutes, basting with a brush every 10 minutes, or until cooked

through, sticky and golden. Remove the ham to a board, ready to slice hot, cold or

at room temperature. Pour all the spicy fat into a jar, cool, and place in the fridge

for tasty cooking another day.

LOVE YOUR LEFTOVERS

Use them in pea soup, serve with my Bubble & Squeak (see recipe below), or at a party with pickles, condiments and nice bread.

Bubble & Squeak

THE ULTIMATE LEFTOVER VEG FLAVOUR PARTY

I’ve always liked making this, since I was a kid. We’d have the pan going for well over an hour, slowly turning those precious leftovers into an incredible pile of gnarly, starchy, veggie gorgeousness. Good bubble & squeak is hard to beat.

SERVES 4

30 MINUTES

Ingredients

olive oil

25g unsalted butter

4 sprigs of fresh woody herbs, such as rosemary, sage, thyme

600g leftover roast potatoes

600g leftover cooked veg, such as carrots, swede, turnips, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, kale

optional: leftover vac-packed chestnuts

Method

Put a 28cm non-stick frying pan on a medium heat with 1 tablespoon of oil and

the butter (or, even better, any leftover dripping you have in the fridge). Pick in

the fresh herb leaves and let them crisp up for a minute, then add the potatoes,

veg, and any leftover chestnuts you’ve got. There’s no need to chop anything first,

as now we’re going to mash it all up with a potato masher into a nice, flat, even

layer. Season well with sea salt and black pepper, and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, or

until a lovely golden crust starts forming on the bottom.

Now we get into the rhythm of the secret to good bubble & squeak. Use a fish slice

to fold those lovely crispy bits back into the mash, then pat and flatten everything

down again. Let it crisp up again, then repeat the process, and – importantly –

keep repeating it over a period of about 20 minutes, until it’s golden, super-

crispy and delicious. About halfway through, nick a bit, taste it, and correct the

seasoning if you need to. When it’s looking good, you can serve it right away, or

you can leave it on the lowest heat for a while – the flavour will only improve.

You can serve this any which way you like – let’s be honest, it’s going to be

amazing whatever you have it with. I like mine with fried eggs, a little lemon-

dressed watercress and a few bombs of Piccalilli.  Slices of leftover Jerk ham are always going to go down a treat, too.

Drinks tasted on air, alongside the dish: