How To Roast A Ham with Pineapple Glaze for Christmas

It is time to get ready for one of the most exciting times of the year...
...Christmas!!!

When all family comes together, we need to make sure that everything is just precisely curated for that memorable Christmas eve, especially dinner. 

Traditionally the best time to cook that beautiful piece of ham some of the most popular styles as you might be familiar is fruit preserves glazed, tea-infused, dry spice, negroni, pineapple, honey glaze, and many other mouthwatering recipes. Most often, the Christmas ham is slow-cooked and glazed with brown sugar. 

Btw, did you know that the Christmas ham is also known as the Yule ham? It has a long story... read here. 

Alrighty, time to focus on how to make our Christmas ham for the hungry diners we love. 

Let’s not disappoint our family on Christmas day.  

So, first things first, choosing ham...

You can buy fresh pork and then brine it (soaking in or saturating with salty water). This process should be done a few days in advance. However, nowadays, you can get a nicely cured piece of ham at your local grocery store - commonly called gammon. 

The next critical step is glazing. 

The glaze is what makes Christmas ham different from any other gammon. As previously mentioned, glazing recipes are trendy, and there are plenty, once the glazing steps are completed, the last stop for your gammon before the Christmas table will be the oven! 

We are spreading the love with this easy finger-licking glaze recipe:

Pineapple and Brown Sugar. 

Ingredients: 

1 bone-in ham

1 pineapple

2 cans of pineapple juice

1 cup brown sugar 

Cooking Time: 

Preparation and cooking time should all take you around 2.5 hours.  

Preparation: 

1. First things first, we need to preheat oven to 325°F/165°C. 
2. Put the ham into a roasting pan. 
3. Cut the pineapple skin off with a knife and remove any brown spot left behind. And then slice the pineapple. The last thing is to pin those sliced pineapples onto the ham with toothpicks. 
4. In order to make our Christmas roasted ham perfect, do not forget to use the most accurate meat thermometer; there is, The MeatStick, just insert it into the thickest part of the meat and you’ll be all set. This step is vital to make our cook perfect. 
5. Bring that beauty to the preheated oven for around 2 hours. That is roughly the time it should take your MeatStick to hit the 140°F/60°C mark in the center of the ham.

FYI: You don’t need to babysit your meat cook. The MeatStick is your sidekick, it can really withstand high temperatures. Remember, The MeatStick comes with either 260ft/80m or unlimited range depending on which one you get. 

While the ham is on the oven, let’s prepare our pineapple glaze. We need to bain-marie the pineapple juice and brown sugar in a heat-resistant bowl until a creamy and soft mix is obtained. 

Finally, pour half of the glaze to create an even layer over the ham and pineapple around 1 hour into the roasting and then add a second layer of glaze about 30 minutes before the end of cooking, don’t forget to regularly rotate your ham to get a crunchy caramelized skin. If serving hot, allow resting for 15-20 minutes before carving.  

Get your MeatStick before Christmas so that when you cook on Christmas day, you will make sure the ham will be perfect. Let The MeatStick help you out!