Picnic ham

Pre-cooked smoked ham USA style
or boil a gammon UK style

There are lots of American recipes for picnic ham, as this seems to be a popular al fresco dish in the USA.

I’ve taken this one from The Picnic Cookbook by Barbara Weiland.

• 1 smoked precooked ham (she says to allow ½ to ¾ pound per person – WOW! I would say half that!)
• whole cloves
• Brandied Cranberry Sauce (see recipe below)

1. Preheat oven to 400F (that’s 200C)
2. Score the fatty part of the ham in a diamond design. Decorate each diamond with a clove
3. Bake uncovered for an hour. Dreain off the grease released by cooking.
4. Pour Brandied Cranberry Sauce over the ham and bake an additional 30 minutes, or place ham on the grill over medium coals and continue cooking an additional 1 to 1.5 hours, basting frequently with sauce. Interior temperature of ham should be 130F on a meat thermometer.
5. Slice ham thinly and arrange on a serving platter. Spoon sauce over the top.

The ham can be transported in the sauce and sliced just before serving. Cover the ham in its baking pan with foil and then wrap in layers of newspaper to keep it warm until serving time.

Brandied Cranberry Sauce:

• 1/4 cup butter
• one 16 ounce can whole cranberry sauce
• ½ cup apricot or pineapple preserves
• 1/4 cup prepared mustard
• one cup brandy or ½ teaspoon imitation brandy flavouring plus 1 cup water
• 2 tablespoons honey
• ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon each of cinnamon, ground cloves and ground ginger

Melt butter in a heavy saucepan. Stir in remaining ingredients and mix well. Simmer for 30 minutes. This sauce can be used hot or chilled. Yield = about 4 cups.



In the UK it would be cheaper and easier to find an uncooked joint of gammon to use as your picnic ham. This could be the middle cut of gammon, which is the leanest or a bacon collar, corner gammon or gammon slipper.

One of the nicest ways to cook it is to braise or simmer it in liquid and then glaze it in the oven.

First of all put the joint in a saucepan, cover it with water and bring to the boil. Now drain it and throw away the water. Rinse the joint and put it back in the saucepan with liquid. This can be water, cider, cranberry juice, or coca-cola. Cherry flavoured coke is good with ham too. If you choose a saucepan which the gammon fits into snugly, you won’t need to use too much liquid. Make it up with water if you haven’t enough anyway.

Add a halved onion and maybe some peppercorns and a bayleaf if you have them. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for about 80 mins per kilo, partly covering the pan.

Then remove from the liquid and when cool, strip off the rind and some of the fat if it’s thick. Score a diamond pattern and add cloves as above. Then either follow the US recipe above or glaze it with a mixture of your own.

An easy mixture is a good tablespoon of English mustard and 2 of dark brown sugar or honey. Press it all over the gammon. Sit the glazed joint on foil (because the glaze drips!) on a baking tray in a hot oven (200C) for about 20 – 30 mins until the fat is browned by the glaze. Baste now and again with the cooking liquid if it looks dry.

Cool, slice, wrap and take your picnic ham with you wherever you’re heading! Serve with a fruit chutney or sauce of your choosing such as cranberry or Cumberland sauce.

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