Ham cooking plan, 2004

This is the ham plan for our annual Virginia Christmas Breakfast. This year, a 15-pound ham served 50 adults (along with 6lbs of sausage, 7.5 lbs of bacon, 9lbs of pork loin, 150 biscuits, and ½ gallon of oyster stew) and we had enough left over for 2 ½ gallons of split pea soup and 1 ¾ gallons of black bean soup.

  1. December 8th (Wednesday):
    1. Purchase ham
      When choosing a ham, feel the ham all over, and make sure that it's relatively soft -- it should feel like you're poking your lower forearm, about three inches from your wrist. Any harder than that means that the ham has dried out too much. Obviously this doesn't apply to the hock or bone area.
    2. Storing the ham
      If you need to store the ham for more than a week or two, put it somewhere that air can circulate around it. Hanging it or setting it on a wire rack work well. Putting it in the back of a refrigerator or on the carpet floor of a dorm room do not.
    3. Unwrap and wash ham
      Unwrap the ham (bag, butcher paper, and netting) and put it in your sink. Use a vegetable brush to scrub the ham under cold water. Remove any mold or patches of crystalized salt. (It shouldn't be necessary to cut any pieces off if you've chosen a good ham, though edge pieces unprotected by fat will be trimmed before serving). Save the bag for reference.
    4. Soak ham
      Place the ham hock-up in a very large pot or a bucket (5-gallon buckets are perfect for this). Cover the ham with as much water as you can. Begin a soak of at least 24 hours. Change the water or soak longer if you want to reduce the salt content, which I never do.
  2. December 9th (Thursday)
    1. Cook the ham (I usually do this overnight, but there's no really good reason for that.)
      1. Place the ham fat-side-up directly into a Nesco roaster pan.
      2. Pour in two or three quarts of water -- enough so that the ham won't dry out.
      3. Set the oven to 350 and cook for around 5 hours, or until the ham reaches a temperature between 150 and 170. (This year I quit at 168F and it came out fine)
  3. December 10th (Friday)
    1. Carve the ham
      1. Remove the ham from the roaster oven and place on a cutting board. It will be dripping, so either make sure the cutting board has grooves or put a towel under it.
      2. Remove the layer of fat. If you were really hardcore, you'd either freeze this for seasoning, or render it down for cooking grease. You're not that hardcore.
      3. Slice the ham with an electric knife while it's still warm (it's softer than when it gets cold).
      4. Carve off a large chunk of meat (this year there were 3 major sections).
      5. Slice the chunks against the grain (if the grains are like this: ||| you would slice it horizontally) -- if you turn the chunk around a bit you can usually find a slicing surface that is both against the grain *and* results in nice pretty slices that fit into a biscut or can be cut into 2 to fit in a biscut). Our slices are usually about ¼" thick.
      6. Separate the slices into pretty slices for serving (they fit well in a large square 19 cup rubbermaid container) and less-presentable slices for soup. Don't worry too hard about leaving the bone completely bare. Refrigerate both containers.
    2. Save the rest
      1. Pour the drippings from the roaster pan into a tall, deep container and place in the refrigerator
      2. Place the ham bones into a ziplock bag and refrigerate
      3. Put the bag of less-presentable slices and trimmings with the bones and drippings, so you can get at them when you're making soup.
  4. December 11th (Saturday)
    1. Consume the ham
    2. Start broth
      1. Put ham bones into a pot.
      2. Cover with water
      3. Cover and boil
      4. Search your freezer for any other pork bones you've saved this year
      5. Add them to the pot, too.
    3. Shop for soup-making ingredients
      • 6 1 or 1½ lb. bags split peas
      • 4-6 1 or 1½ lb. bags black beans
      • A dozen yellow onions -- tall and skinny instead of short and fat
      • A bag of shredded carrots
      • A bag of celery sticks
      • 4 fresh cayenne peppers
      • 4 fresh red jalapeño peppers
      • A dozen cloves of garlic
    4. Soak peas and beans
      1. In a separate pot, follow the quick soak instructions for the peas
      2. Begin a slow, traditional soak for the black beans -- these will soak overnight.
    5. Process leftover ham
      1. Remove good meat from the less-presentable slices.
      2. Place the gristly or discolored pieces into the broth pot
      3. Cut the good meat into bite-sized chunks and place in a large container
      4. Figure out how much of the pretty slices you'll eat over the next week or so, given other leftovers
      5. Pull out and refrigerate the nicest of those in that quantity
      6. Cut the rest into bite-size pieces and add it to your ham container
      7. At this point, the meat you left on the bone will probably have fallen off. Remove it from the pot with tongs, cut it up and add it to the ham container
    6. Cut vegetables
      1. Chop onions until you've got about a gallon and a half
      2. Chop celery and carrots, and place these in a different bowl from the onions.
      3. Chop peppers and garlic, and put these in a different bowl from the onions, or the celery and carrots
    7. Finish broth
      1. Strain the broth into the soaking bucket or a fourth pot.
      2. Throw away the bones and any meat that you don't want to salvage for the soup
      3. Find the drippings you saved from the roaster
      4. Remove and discard the layer of fat from the top of the container
      5. Pour the gelatinized water-soluble drippings left into the broth
      6. Stir to disolve.
    8. Begin Split-Pea Soup
      1. Pour between ½ & ⅔ of the broth back into your big pot
      2. Drain and add the peas
      3. Add half the onions
      4. Add all the celery and carrots
      5. Cook the soup. Add half the ham after an hour or so. Make sure the soup doesn't stick, which it's likely to do after you add the ham
    9. Store Black-bean soup
      1. Wash pot used to soak peas
      2. Pour remaining broth into the pot
      3. Add onions, garlic, and peppers
      4. Refrigerate, along with remaining ham
  5. December 12th (Sunday)
    1. Cook Black-bean soup
      1. After the split pea soup is done and processed for freezing, and the pot is washed:
      2. Drain the soaked beans and add them to the pot
      3. Add the onions, peppers, garlic, and broth to the pot
      4. Add water to cover
      5. Cook. Add ham after a couple of hours.