I tried an interesting twist on one of my favorites this year - a baked ham.
Its almost like a simple braise. So simple it has two ingredients: ham & rootbeer.
The ham was a small one from Niman Ranch, a company whose product I love. and the root beer has to be Virgil's. It's a cut above most out there. It's lightly carbonated, sweetened (but not too much) with cane sugar. What really makes it great is it's huge complexity resulting from spices and roots. Unlike almost all commercially available root beers , it's actually brewed.
I poured two bottles in a pan , plopped in the ham, covered it and baked the thing @ 300 degrees for around four hours, flipping it every 45 min. or so.
It turned out pretty ok. The ham wasn't the cut I was hoping for, it was leaner than I expected, so it didn't soften up as much as I wanted. However, the resulting glaze was out of this world. The cooking time left it the perfect consistency and I finished it by whisking in a dollop of Dijon and a sprinkle of Chinese five spice. The specifics need tweaking, but the potential for greatness is certainly there.
The resulting sauce was definitely something to remember. It's so dark
it looks burnt, but the concentrated Virgil's was amazing with the ham.
