A Citrus and Spice Glaze for the Christmas Ham
Ottolenghi Citrus & Spice (50g)
$12.95
Hand-packed and dispatched from our Corio, Victoria warehouse, with free delivery Australia-wide on orders over $100.
A citrus and spice ham glaze is Ottolenghi Citrus & Spice warmed into fine cut Seville orange marmalade with hot English mustard and the juice of an orange, then brushed over a scored leg in four thin coats at 180°C. Fifteen minutes at the stove, about an hour in the oven, and it feeds the same table a plain brown sugar glaze would. Serves 12 to 16 as the centrepiece, with leftovers for the week.
The leg itself is a butcher buy, and in December it is worth booking the weight you want in November. What we sell is the tin and the jars that turn it into the thing people remember at the end of the day, and all three keep in the cupboard from the moment they arrive. How big a leg to order is in how much ham to buy per person, and the general technique, rind, scoring, timings, is in how to glaze a Christmas ham. This is the one glaze, in full.
The blend goes into the pan, never onto the ham
A dry spice blend brushed or patted straight onto wet fat behaves like dust. Roasted cumin carries its flavour in oil, and it needs fat and heat to give any of it up, so a blend that has only met the surface of a ham tastes chalky at the front and raw at the back. Worse, the loose grains sit proud of the glaze and are the first thing to catch when the oven goes up at the end.
Stirred into warm marmalade instead, and held at a bare simmer for two minutes, the same two tablespoons behave completely differently. Sugar is the reason that is safe rather than reckless. There is brown sugar and sugar in the blend as well as a jar of marmalade in the pan, and on a dry hot surface that combination is the first thing to colour, which is why the tin meets roasting nuts only at the end, never from the start. In a slack syrup it cannot behave that way: while there is water in the pan the whole thing sits near 100°C, well under the heat sugar needs to catch, so the two minutes does nothing but soften the spices and pull their oils into the syrup. Your nose tells you when it has happened, and it is not subtle: dusty turns roasted, and the kitchen smells of cumin and orange peel rather than of a spice cupboard.
What the tin saves you adding
The label on the 50g tin reads roasted cumin at 27 per cent, roasted coriander, lemon peel at 15 per cent, lime juice powder at 11 per cent, nigella seeds, brown sugar, roasted garlic granules, sugar, sumac at 5 per cent, sea salt, olive oil and lemon oil. Read that as a shopping list rather than a flavour note and most of what a ham glaze normally has to be given is already in the tin.
Sharpness comes first. A sweet glaze usually borrows its edge from vinegar or a whole lemon, and this one gets it dry, from the lemon peel, the lime juice powder and the sumac, which is why a single tablespoon of mustard is all the sharpening it needs and nothing wet and sour goes near the pan. Sweetness is there in the small print, two sugars mid-label, so the marmalade is not carrying the set on its own and the glaze firms up faster than the jar suggests it will. Salt is the one to watch. There is sea salt in the blend and a cooked leg is already cured, so no salt goes into this recipe at any point, and anything you add on top of those two lands on the plate.
Only the oils at the end of the label are a token amount, nothing like the fat needed to carry 27 per cent cumin, which is the other half of the reason the tin goes into a warm pan and not onto cold fat.
Method
Method
- Take the ham out of the fridge an hour before it goes in, so the fat is not fridge-cold when the first coat lands on it.
- Heat the oven to 180°C, or 160°C fan-forced.
- Line a large deep roasting tray with baking paper and then foil, and pour two cups of water into the base.
- Cut through the rind all the way around the shank, then work your fingers under the skin and peel it back in one piece, leaving the fat behind on the leg.
- Score the fat into diamonds about 2cm across and 1cm deep, stopping at the meat so the juices stay in.
- Push a clove into the centre of each diamond if you want them, and wrap the shank bone in foil so it does not blacken.
- Warm the marmalade in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring, until it slackens into a pourable syrup.
- Stir in the 2 tablespoons of Citrus & Spice and hold it at a bare simmer for 2 minutes, until it smells roasted rather than dusty. Keep it below a proper boil, which takes marmalade towards toffee.
- Take the pan off the heat and whisk in the mustard, orange juice and olive oil. Add no salt at any point.
- Sit the ham on a rack in the tray, fat side up, and brush on the first thin coat, working it into the scores without filling them.
- Bake for 15 minutes, then brush on the second coat, and repeat every 15 minutes for four coats and about an hour in total. Each coat should look set, not wet, before the next one goes on.
- Stir the glaze in the pan each time you go back to it, since the spices settle to the bottom between coats and the last brushful is the best one.
- If the top is still pale after the fourth coat, turn the oven to 220°C for 8 to 10 minutes and stay in the kitchen. Dried lemon peel and cumin are sitting on this surface alongside the sugar, and dry peel colours faster than syrup does, so there is less warning here than with a plain brown sugar glaze. Fold a strip of foil over any corner browning ahead of the rest.
- Lift the ham onto a warm board and rest it for 20 minutes.
- Dust the last 2 teaspoons of Citrus & Spice over the top while the glaze is still tacky, so the nigella seeds and sumac catch and stay put.
- Tip the syrup from the base of the tray into a jug, skim the fat off the top, and spoon what is left over the carved slices. Scatter with parsley.
The day after
Cold, this is a better ham than a plain one, because the mustard and the citrus keep working in the fridge. Slice it thin with the same marmalade and a sharp cheddar, or work through twelve things to do with leftover Christmas ham when the sandwiches run out. The syrup in the jug sets hard, comes back with 30 seconds of low heat and a teaspoon of water, and goes onto chicken thighs the following week.
The glaze is a tin, two jars and a spoonful of olive oil, and every one of them keeps from October. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day from our Corio, VIC warehouse, tracked with Australia Post, and shipping is free Australia-wide over $100. The rest of the cold table is in festive entertaining essentials.
Questions we get asked
What does Ottolenghi Citrus & Spice taste like on ham?
Roasted cumin first, then lemon. Cumin is 27 per cent of the tin with roasted coriander behind it, the lemon peel is 15 per cent and the lime juice powder 11, and sumac at 5 per cent carries the sour end. There is roasted garlic in there too, and enough brown sugar and sugar to round the whole thing off, so on a salty cured leg it reads warm and citrusy rather than sharp. No chilli at all. If you want heat with it, the tablespoon of hot English mustard is where to put it.
How much glaze does a half leg of ham need?
About a cup, 250ml, which is what these quantities make. That is the same figure our ham glazing guide gives for a whole leg, because coverage is a surface job rather than a weight one and four thin coats use far less than most people make. A bigger leg wants the same cup taken further and a fifth pass at it, not a heavier hand. One thick coat slides off into the tray and takes the spices with it.
Does the glaze work on anything other than ham?
It suits pork belly, chicken thighs and roast pumpkin, at the same 180°C but glazed only in the last 20 minutes, since none of them arrive already cooked the way a ham does.
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