SLOW-COOKED BLACK TREACLE HAM

NOTHING will ever take the place of my ham in Coca-Cola from my early book, Nigella Bites — in my heart or on my table — but this slow-baked ham is a revelation of a different sort. Instead of being boiled and then transferred to a hot oven to be glazed, I cook it so, so slowly in the oven, draped with black treacle and wrapped in foil so that it steams sweetly in the low heat. I then remove the ham from the oven, take off the foil and rind, stud the layer of fat on top with cloves, cover with a mustardy black treacle glaze and put the joint briefly back in a very hot oven. Cooked like this, the meat is astonishingly tender and carves into thin slices with ease; there is also very little shrinkage and no wrangling with large joints of meat in boiling liquid. I always like a ham on Christmas Eve, which means that there is cold ham as well as cold turkey for Boxing Day (and general sandwich duty), and this is the way to cook it to make your life easier. SERVES 10 TO 12, WITH LEFTOVERS ● 3.5kg joint boneless gammon, rind on ● 150g black treacle FOR THE GLAZE: ● Approx 1 tbsp whole cloves ● 4 tbsp black treacle ● 4 tbsp demerara sugar ● 1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 PreheaT the oven to 250c/gas 9 and let your gammon come to room temperature. Line a large roasting tin with a layer of foil, and then sit a wire rack on top of it. Tear off a large piece of foil (big enough to wrap around the ham) and place this over the rack on the roasting tin. Tear off a second , large piece of foil and place on top, but in the opposite way to the first, so you have 4 corners of foil ready to wrap your ham in. Sit the gammon on the foil and then pour the black treacle over it, straight on to the rind, letting it run down both sides. Don’t worry too much about spreading it over the ham, as once it’s in the heat of the oven, it will coat the ham well enough.

2 Now, lift up the sides and ends of the first layer of foil and make a seal at the top, leaving some room around the gammon, then seal the ends. Then take up the otherpiece of foil and do the same. You are trying to create a good seal around the gammon, so pinch together any open gaps that remain. Finally, tear off another piece of foil and put over the top of the whole parcel, making sure it’s well sealed.