Christmas is coming

[RustyHinge]

Something we used to have sometimes. Bear in mind that there were six of
us plus (usually) an au pair or similar, and loads of friends and
rellies used to come over...

Take a good fat ham and prick it all over with a skewer. Plant cloves,
peppercorns, allspice etc in the skewerings. Mix a heavy dough out of
plain flour and water and 'render' the ham with it.

Ensure that the case is thoroughly sealed and put the ham in a roasting
pan. Cover the rendered ham with aluminium foil and bake for a *long time*™.

We (kids) used to eat the pastry case while it was hot - dlish!

I expect smaller gatherings could be fed with a rolled joint of pork,
skin on, similarly treated, but ham's better. I'd never thought of it
before, but a chicken or turkey might be treated in the same^h^h^h^a
similar way

--
Rusty Hinge
To err is human. To really foul things up requires a computer and the BOFH.

[Brian Gaff]

I thought for a moment the thread was going to remind people to get their
sprouts on, or maybe complaining about QVC doing festive events already.
Brian

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"RustyHinge" <rusty...@foobar.girolle.co.uk> wrote in message
news:uabpff$3onab$1...@dont-email.me...

> Something we used to have sometimes. Bear in mind that there were six of
> us plus (usually) an au pair or similar, and loads of friends and rellies
> used to come over...
>
> Take a good fat ham and prick it all over with a skewer. Plant cloves,
> peppercorns, allspice etc in the skewerings. Mix a heavy dough out of
> plain flour and water and 'render' the ham with it.
>
> Ensure that the case is thoroughly sealed and put the ham in a roasting
> pan. Cover the rendered ham with aluminium foil and bake for a *long

> time*T.

[Thomas Prufer]

On Tue, 1 Aug 2023 21:21:03 +0100, RustyHinge <rusty...@foobar.girolle.co.uk>
wrote:

>I expect smaller gatherings could be fed with a rolled joint of pork,
>skin on, similarly treated, but ham's better. I'd never thought of it
>before, but a chicken or turkey might be treated in the same^h^h^h^a
>similar way

Butbut the skin would become soft and leathery? On the skin-on pork, if wrapped
with dough. Better to get it to direct heat so it becomes blistered and crunchy!


Thomas Prufer

[RustyHinge]

You wouldn't usually eat the skin: it's very soft and friable when the
pastry is removed. I say 'pastry' because while it starts off as flour
and water dough it absorbs a lot of the fat abd juices from the joint
and this converts it into something really scrumptious.

Parts of this are nicely blistered and crunchy, but the joint is tender
and flavoursome.

[Thomas Prufer]

On Thu, 3 Aug 2023 02:24:09 +0100, RustyHinge <rusty...@foobar.girolle.co.uk>
wrote:

Aaaah, okay. At this point I'd suggest eating the pastry, and while doing that,
getting the skin crunchy.

There's a bavarian pork roast where crunchy crackling skin is a feature: Take
soft and friable skin, cross-hatch with knife because it will not cut easily one
crunchy. Set the oven to max, convection if you have it, possibly radiant heat
from the top. The skin dries and blisters, becoming a slab of crackling. This
takes maybe 15 minutes, so the rest remains tender and flavoursome; no time to
dry out.

The above failed on a roast of mine, and I then helped it along using an
industrial 3 kW hot air gun I happened to have around (I was repairing it).
Worked very well, once I figured out that a stream of 600 °C air will incinerate
and blacken a roast, if held too close.


Thomas Prufer

[Ben Newsam]

RustyHinge wrote, though the Organization header says "Diss
Organisation":

>I expect smaller gatherings could be fed with a rolled joint of pork,
>skin on, similarly treated, but ham's better. I'd never thought of it
>before, but a chicken or turkey might be treated in the same^h^h^h^a
>similar way

You can certainly do the same with a leg of lamb. Use slivers of
garlic instead of cloves though.
--
Ben