Should i slice ham before cooking

Whatever you do, don't coat the ham with sugar until the last hour of cooking, or it will burn. You also don't want to baste the ham with the drippings from the pan; use extra glaze instead. At the end of the meal, don't throw out the ham bone. Use it instead of a ham hock to flavor split-pea soup or bean dishes. And don't forget that ham has only calories in a 3-ounce serving—go ahead and enjoy seconds!

Glazed ham is a delicious option for a special-occasion meal. Our step-by-step guide to making your own glazed him results in an impressive main dish. Rinse ham under cool running water. Pat dry, and place on a rack, rind side up, set in a roasting pan lined with aluminum foil. Prepare the glaze while ham is baking. When ham is cool enough to handle, cut off the hard rind, using kitchen shears or a sharp knife.

Insert a whole clove into the intersection of each diamond. Brush fat with glaze, working it into the scored lines.

Using your hands, pat brown-sugar mixture all over ham. Use toothpick halves to secure fresh bay leaves around the bone; hide the end of each toothpick with a whole clove. Return ham to oven. After 20 minutes, baste ham: Brush sugar coating with some of the remaining glaze mixture; never baste with drippings from the pan.

Baste every 20 minutes until the ham is brown and crusty, making sure to baste quickly so the oven temperature doesn't drop. Also, there are bone-in hams, completely boneless hams, and ones that have a middle bone and that are usually pre-sliced.

How to fix it: Talk to the butcher behind the meat counter, Weening suggests. Butchers will be able to guide you to the right type of ham depending on the holiday hosting scenario and the type of meal you're trying to serve, he says.

Boneless hams, for example, may be easier to cut, but a bone-in ham tends to hold more flavor. If you do go the country ham route, cutting too-thick of slices will lead to salty, hard pieces of meat ending up on people's plates, cautions Christian Graves, the executive chef at Citizen Rail in Denver, Colorado.

How to fix it: Graves is a fan of country-style ham. His serving suggestion: "Slice it thin to win! How to fix it: Look for hams that are labeled "ham" and steer clear of those that have labels such as "ham, water added" or "ham and water product. How to fix it: Avoid purchasing a ham if you spot cloudy liquid, Lang says.

Also, when you get the ham home and take it out of the pack, rinse it under cold running water to wash off the excess salt, he suggests. You want an easy-to-slice ham so that you can serve everyone quickly, while the ham is still hot. How to fix it: For easy carving, buy a shank-end, spiral-sliced ham, says Morgan Bolling, deputy food editor at Cook's Country and meat expert at America's Test Kitchen. A whole ham is the entire back leg of the pig, she explains, but it's often split and sold as a "butt" sometimes called "sirloin" portion and the "shank" portion.

The butt portion is more domed and has odd-shaped bones, making it harder to carve, she says. The shank is lower down the leg with a more simple bone structure.

If they're not labeled, look for the roasts that are more conical in shape with a tapered, pointed end—that should be from the shank portion. How to fix it: "Be sure to remove your ham from the packaging it comes in," Weening says. Want a succulent, flavorful ham? Of course you do! But if you forget to call in a braising liquid for back-up, you risk your holiday ham coming out of the oven disappointingly dry. How to fix it: Cook your ham in a chicken broth, orange juice, apple juice, or cider vinegar, suggests Ryker Brown, the executive chef at the Omni Nashville Hotel.

This can be done by setting the pork on the counter for about an hour prior to cooking. By scoring the skin of the ham—aka cutting slightly into the skin in a crisscross pattern across the entire surface—you allow both the fat to render out and the glaze to seep into the inner meat, rather than just the outer skin.

Hams are at their best when given the extra time to cook low, slow, and at an even temperature. This will help your glaze caramelize, creating that delectable outer shell. Once the glaze is on, turn your oven up to degrees and watch your ham carefully, reducing the temperature once you see the glaze start to harden.

While a ham is generally considered done when it reaches degrees, make sure to remove it from the oven before it hits this final temperature. Go for meat labeled ham quite costly or ham with natural juices next best. Be wary of ham, water added and ham and water product. Cut A whole ham serves 30, so most people buy a half. To trim before cooking: If it is a half ham, place the cut side down.

Other useful 0. In most cases, sausages are breaded beforehand. You can skip the thawing process altogether and cook frozen. Is pre cooked shrimp healthy?