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Sarah Rossi’s Slow Cooker Roasted Gammon Recipe

There is something particularly festive about serving golden, glistening roasted gammon as a centrepiece for a buffet table.

15 minutes prep, 6 hours cook

Ingredients

For the Slow Cook

1 gammon joint (boneless, smoked or unsmoked), about 2kg

1 carrot, peeled and quartered

1 onion, peeled and quartered

3 tbsp mixed spice

500ml cider (dry or medium)

1 litre apple juice

For the Glaze

6 tbsp runny honey

3 tbsp soft dark brown sugar

1 tbsp English mustard powder (optional)

Method

1 Put the slow cook ingredients into the slow cooker. Place the lid on and cook on HIGH for 4–6 hours or LOW for 6–8 hours. If you can, turn the joint over and baste it halfway through the cooking time.

2 When the cooking time is complete, take the meat out of the slow cooker and discard the vegetables and liquid.

3 Preheat the oven to 200°C fan/220°C/Gas Mark 7 and line a roasting tin with two layers of tin foil or use a disposable tin-foil tray. (This is important, as the glaze is incredibly hard to scrub off!)

4 Remove the string and layer of skin (if your gammon has them) and use a sharp knife to score the fat. Sit the ham in the lined pan and drench it with the honey. Pat the sugar (and mustard powder if you’re using it) onto the honey.

5 Roast for 30 minutes until the ham is just turning black at the edges.

If you don’t have a slow cooker...
Work out the cooking time of your gammon joint by calculating 30 minutes per 450g/1lb, plus an additional 30 minutes. Put the ‘slow cook’ ingredients into a large saucepan and boil on the hob over a medium heat for the total cooking time minus 30 minutes. Drain, add the honey and sugar and finish in the oven as per steps 3 and 4 above.

To make ahead
Allow the baked ham to cool, wrap well and store in the fridge for up to 3 days, until ready to slice and serve cold

If you prefer not to cook with alcohol, replace the cider with additional apple juice

Recipes extracted from What’s for Christmas Dinner? by Sarah Rossi, published by HarperNonFiction. Photography by Sam Folan.