Ham to Die for on the Braai/BigGreenEgg

Well, it's another week closer to Spring and man I cant wait for this to arrive, its a miracle that I'm still braaiing every week with the weather we’ve had and it gets dark at 4.00pm. You can check me out braaiing with my cycling helmet on and light to see what the hell I'm doing lol. Guess what, it's now going to snow as well this week, so it will be interesting to see how the BGE works when it arrives.

This week I've cooked a leg of pork, to be precise its a smoked ham which I am going to smoke again. I've cheated a bit because I made this at the same time that I made the bread that I blogged about last week. Trust me, when I say these two together were just a match made in Heaven or Hell depending on wether you like or eat pork. So lets get on with it.

SERVES 10-12: PREP: 15MINS: SMOKE Time 2HR: COOK TIME:2-3HR

Preheat the Braai/BigGreenEgg to 200ºF/94ºC.
Place the hickory chips in a small bowl, cover with water and let soak for at least 1 hour.
Ingredients for the first stage of cooking:
4 x Bay leaves
12 x Cloves
10g x Black Pepper corns
1lt x Cider preferably Savanna (I forgot to being it back so we used Bulmers)
1lt x cold water

Method for first stage of cooking:

Take the ham and place it in a very large saucepan and poor the cider and water over it. Add the Bay Leaves and cloves cover and bring to the boil. Leave this to simmer for 2 – 3 hr making sure that you turn it every 30 mins. This helps the salt to be drawn out from the smoked ham. Once its been cooking for 3hrs take it out and peel of the skin of the ham, this would not be great to eat anyway, so through it away. Score the ham in a diamond pattern with a sharp knife, ready for the next stage.

Ingredients for the second stage of cooking:

100ml x Maple Syrup
100ml x Bourbon
100g x Cloves

Method for second stage of cooking:

Mix the Maple syrup and Bourbon together and brush over the ham. Take the cloves and push into the ham in the middle of each diamond. Brush the ham again with the mix and do so continually during the smoking so that it keeps the ham moist. Next add the wood chipping to the braai, place the ham in the middle of the BigGreenEgg and close the lid. Do not open for at least an hour and the baste every 15 mins with the mixture. Once its been smoking for 2 hrs take the ham out of the braai and place on a board and cover so that it can relax for 30mins at least before you carve.

All that is need now is to carve the ham and serve with either freshly baked bread (see last weeks blog) or with mashed potatoes, sauerkraut and some English mustard. Mmmm it tasted as great as it looks. Please leave any feed back below, this really helps me work out what to do, many thanks. Larry.